


It was dark when I found you

by shadowlands



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Akashi Masaomi's A+ Parenting, Friendship/Love, Hurt/Comfort, Long Shot, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Protective Generation of Miracles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-29
Updated: 2018-11-29
Packaged: 2019-07-04 03:54:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 47,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15833235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowlands/pseuds/shadowlands
Summary: In comparison the first two years of Teikou had been paradise and the third hell.Even if one were to accuse Midorima of exaggeration, in hindsight Akashi recalled it the same way.Or the one where there is no distinction between falling apart and falling together for Akashi Seijuurou and Midorima Shintarou.





	It was dark when I found you

**Author's Note:**

> Because I am sad and writing my second book is like pulling teeth...
> 
> After years of boycotting anything fandom related including investing my time in fanfics, here I am. I keep coming back to this rarepair so I put my insomnia and tearducts to marginally better use.
> 
> Due to the sheer length of this piece it's unbetaed and probably littered with errors. Kudos and comments welcome.
> 
> Listen to Sakura Nagashi by Utada Hikaru and Ultraviolet by Freya Ridings.  
> 

For what it's worth, how it starts doesn't really matter as they both differ in their ideas of what a proper beginning to one's relationship narrative would look like.

Nevertheless it starts with names.

In reality it begins in a way neither of them can accurately remember, but otherwise it ends prematurely in a sorely identical manner.

History class in Teikou is lax but old fashioned. The prestigious class 1A in particular is ridden with family trees and kanjis and calligraphy. The only thing left untouched was tea ceremonies and Midorima speculates they only excluded it from the syllabus for fear of needing to pay for damages. Preteens and fine china don't exactly mix after all.

Their textbook is thick but not any thicker than the telephone book Oha Asa prescribed him today. The first three chapters contain prehistoric Japan, boasting the royal bloodline in an intricate series of webbing.

Behind and slightly to the left of him Akashi is absentmindedly chewing on the tip of his pencil. For such a well bred boy, being the only one to outclass him in brushwork with strokes that are practically mechanical which spoke of not only practice but sheer ability, it's a nasty habit, but then again Akashi has a lot of those he’s yet to discover.

Akashi roughly scribbles onto lined paper atop of his desk. Midorima suspects it to be the integral homework that was given last period. Although they weren't technically allowed to complete other classwork while the subject was in session, Akashi got away with a lot due to the merits of his whooping 495 points in the school's entrance exams. The teacher pointedly ignored whatever he’s up to so long it did not disturb the learning atmosphere.

Midorima directed his sight back towards the text, hoping to contextualize the information in the paragraphs to that of the chart. Emperor Azumane Hiroshi and his consort gave birth to Azumane Iruka who married one Akashi Akane. This led to three more children, two princes and a princess. Hajime, Ishida and Shiori.

A notable footnote read Akashi Shiori had married an unnamed commoner and chosen to abdicate the title. The line led to Akashi Shiori's heir who would have been fifth in line for the throne which had been left as another blank upon the princess’ request to keep her family out of the scrutiny of the public eye.

Sensei Natsumi is none the wiser despite passing Akashi's row as she laments the romanticism of said mystery, a crown being exchanged for a mother's love in the true vein of such familial sacrifice. Of course a name like Akashi is commonplace enough, even in circles of the business elite that it can go dismissed, but there is nothing commonplace with the boy seated precariously on his chair, gripping his stationery as if it was his last tether to existence.

That isn't a tell most people would notice. But Midorima isn't most people.

He doesn't dare start the conversation in a public venue and waits for break. Soon enough class ends and while the roof is their sanctuary, this time Akashi regards the steps leading up to it as if one were to face a firing squad at the top, solemn acceptance etched onto his features.

Midorima couldn't believe he didn't figure it out sooner. Even the curve of those eyes, those impeccable table manners no matter how awfully often discarded in favor of his rebellious streak, those endearingly polished speech patterns, all screamed aristocracy. The kind that isn't forcibly bred into him but all part of a divine ancestry.

"It's you, isn't it?"

At the accusation Akashi only chuckles. "What makes you say that?"

"Your mother's name was Shiori."

Akashi doesn't breathe at that and Midorima realizes this is his mistake. He wonders if that meant Akashi regrets having let him into the funeral grounds at the estate that one time he skipped school and left him worried sick. If this is perhaps the first and last time anyone will ever use her as a weapon against him.

Midorima had brought a string of white chamomile, modest among the colorful arrangement of hydrangeas and still to this date Akashi's favorite. The price of flowers and company in perhaps his least favorite day of the year turned out to be this discovery. Would he have traded it if he knew it would lead up to now?

No. No, he wouldn't. Akashi's fond memories are few and far in between, that even losing that wouldn't have been worth this stupidity. His teeth still rankles with the anxiety of what this confrontation will result in. 

How does one respond to a betrayal of this magnitude? Desertion, he thinks. Or something equally dramatic befitting a man utterly devoted to the game, a healthy dose of superstition and the greater virtues of humanity. It is a nasty surprise. Akashi wouldn't be surprised if this ended in fisticuffs or the more likely outcome of words that chafe well into several months. It's always the nicer ones that retaliate the coldest.

How does one apologize for it? Sorry, I've been leading you on when we have zero chance of what people like to call happily ever after? The best thing you could be in my life is a dirty affair exposed on a rag column ten years from now?

They all sound horrible and unbearably callous, nothing he'd like to inflict on anyone with half a heart, let alone one as generous as the other boy's.

Everything Akashi did always seems too little and too much with Midorima. For all his strength and size, Midorima has never made him feel small. Akashi isn't planning on letting him start today.

"I told you my family was Kuge."

It sounds almost defiant, petulant and maybe if they were debating about anything else but this, Midorima would have caved in to anything he desired.

"Akashi, there is a mile wide difference between being Kuge and fifth in line for the imperial throne. I would know."

Herein lies Akashi's fault for dating a boy with principles. If two dates holding hands at a tofu shop after practice and a library while sharing their contraband of red bean mochi could be called such. They never did put a label to it, did they? It sounds frivolous at the moment, but since Akashi is fairly certain that whatever they have will soon be terminated, he wishes they had. His father would be so proud if he were to cry over spilled milk, not. His father hadn't even been proud when he deigned to mourn his mother for _longer than necessary_. Longer than necessary. Did grief even came with a preordained designated time period? Akashi never asked anyone, although he's fairly certain the answer would be no. Especially when said question was asked by an eleven year old. He'd probably get a hug too. God, it's been over three years and he still misses her.

"What would you like to do?" Unfortunately instead of his nonchalance alleviating the burden of this decision off of Midorima's admittedly wide shoulders, its apparent unconcerned feel grates on him instead. "Break up I suppose?"

Midorima flat out winces before composing himself in record time.

"You knew this was never going to last forever, don't you?" As if admonishing a child that knows no better from wishing for the impossible. Akashi runs his mouth, knowing it only carried him to worse places, and yet he cannot seem to stop himself. 

Taped fingers promptly adjusted his glasses. "Not from my end. My father while a man of science, is not as small minded to dismiss our relationship for fear of outdated beliefs."

Midorima too came from money, having a prolific surgeon for a father as well as a founding member of Japan's Neurosurgical Society, their names were practically carved into the plaques of hospitals' leader boards. Losing face due to a scandal would be problematic for sure, but Midorima would like to think he knew his father better than that however, as dedicated to his profession as Midorima Tadashi was, he's well informed enough to know that a measure of happiness shouldn't be their financial nor occupational standing.

Midorima knew while vastly more equipped with any resource imaginable such as actual power that held any sway in life outside the operating theater and medical journal community, Akashi doesn't quite have the same privilege. Not even remotely speaking. How tragic of an irony one's name could bestow upon its person. Especially now. Going against the grain may be a death sentence.

While Kuge entailed traditions and demands being fulfilled, in modern times you could still weasel your way around the absurdity. But being affiliated so directly to the throne like this meant commitment. Life long commitment that included summons at the palace, living your whole life under a microscope and the hand of a sword if you didn't follow its plans for you.

Even if Shiori had made sure her son escaped into obscurity, no one could ever truly escape their blood so long as the monarchy wasn't abolished. And Midorima doubted Masaomi ever agreed to it. Akashi had once in not so many words implied that his father married into the name and if he had it his way they would have never been left out of the history books. Shiori's passing had merely been an inconvenience for he had nearly convinced her to revoke her abdication after his brother in-law's wife was rumored to be barren after six years of marriage. Everything Masaomi was working on might as well all be for reinstating proper acknowledgement over his son's status as a descendant.

The political implications were damning. Fifth in line. Fourth perhaps if the telltale whispers were to be believed.

Midorima gathered the foregone conclusion. "You have a fiancée, Akashi."

And plenty of other things I've neglected to mention, Akashi swallows. "Don't remind me, she's a menace."

As much of a menace one can be while robed in a floor length yukata and a matching paper fan.

"I can't do this- I can't-" Be with you. No matter how much I want to. Midorima is looking at him as if pleading for him to not have to spell it out for them. That this if continued even a slight step further is a roadmap to disaster.

Akashi thinks... If you're willing to look the other way then, so would I. Then immediately forbids himself from vocalizing the idea for that would be an even greater insult to Midorima.

"I know you," instead is how Akashi begins, unflinching. "I know you have your pride. Your dignity. And I will never condemn you to being someone's secret. You deserve the whole world to see you."

Akashi has never been blind to Midorima's appeal. While one may think him frigid, one has also never been exposed to hours and hours of shogi with him in which a neatly pressed uniform would come undone, windsor knot pulled from frazzled nerves. Those long fingers, agile over ivory keys across Bach, Liszt, Schubert, releasing a ball through a hyperbola to sink it swiftly into the net, rim untouched. Shoulders and back sculpted like a linebacker. Those green eyes made hazel by the sun, high and bright, not bright enough to scorch, just enough to cast lovely shadows upon devastatingly long eyelashes.

To hide him would be a sin.

"I shouldn't have hid this. Hid you." This is the closest thing to an apology he can manage. "I won't take up more of your life like this."

Midorima's heart stutters. Prolonged exposure to Akashi has always caused some form of arrhythmia, but this is something else. God. This would have been so much easier if Akashi were being cruel about it. And Oha Asa did rank Sagittarius at a low tenth today. Fate was a cruel mistress indeed.

Akashi is not a runner. Midorima essentially knows that for a fact. But he can't help saying, "Don't disappear."

He'd be lying if he didn't fantasize sprinting down the stairs and making a beeline for the broom closet until practice comes around.

But Midorima's expression registers to him. While Akashi is prone to heartbreak, the experience as familiar to him as breaking in a new pair of shoes, he realizes he is Midorima's first. Taking responsibility is the least he could do.

"You know me." Akashi pulls him by the jaw. "We've been friends for far longer before we were more. That won't have to change, unless you want to."

Midorima shakes his head in disagreement almost fervently. His eyes are dry but his throat wobbles and Akashi wishes he could take this onslaught of emotions for him. "Akashi, I don't want to hurt you."

"I know." Which isn't quite the same as you didn't, but Midorima supposed he deserved it. "Hey, hey," Akashi reprimanded him. "This is on me. It was my idea from the start. And it's burning down because I lied to you and foolishly expected you to live a lie for my sake. Now that I think about it, I would never want someone who would just give in to my demands like that. You deserve so much more than stiff soirees and bathroom encounters. You deserve to make room in your heart for someone else. Someone better, kinder. Someone free."

Because that's what the rest of his life would look like if he were to accept the circumstances of Akashi's noble, scratch that, royal birth.

"There is nothing wrong with wanting more than what I can give you." Midorima needn't be told that but it helps him all the same that he's able to shift his expression into a small smile. "I'd only hope you'd forgive me for putting you through this."

This time Midorima almost looks ticked at him taking all the blame for it. "You might be persuasive Akashi, but in case you haven't noticed it takes two to tango."

Modern phrases coming out of Midorima still sends Akashi reeling, mostly into laughter no matter how subdued. They can do this, he decided. They'll make it work. They'll still have basketball and shogi and sonatas to play together. Just no longer with the boundaries they were hoping to cross before.

Akashi purposely sighs a soft demure sound. "And here I was hoping one day you'd bring me up here to give me my first kiss."

Midorima sputters and clears his throat twice. "Was- was that an invitation? I thought ending a relationship meant limiting the grounds of physical affection."

"It does." Akashi lowers his hold on him to the lapels of his blazer, eyeing the clock tower. "But we still have time."

Midorima understands and whatever shyness that was there is completely gone replaced with the kind of self assured confidence normally only reserved for the court.

The world stops for a handful of seconds when their lips meet. Akashi smiles into it even when their noses bump a bit and he has to stand on the tip of his toes, readily holding said position indefinitely.

It tastes like goodbye.

When it ends Midorima is silent and he holds their heads together for a little longer, savoring what few moments they have left, breathing out his name like a prayer.

Akashi doesn't cry, but he comes damn near close to it.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The next two weeks actually pass by in a bout of normalcy save for the eventful induction of one Kise Ryouta into what the Basketball Monthly dubs the Generation of Miracles.

"Flashy, but effective," was Akashi's comment at the nickname.

Even Akashi's captaincy post Nijimura's departure is handled with less fanfare, with everything resolved in a quiet match of shogi as Akashi pronounced over a winning hand, "You'll be my vice of course, Midorima."

He might have harrumphed at that, but was pleased at the development nonetheless. Only there was still one loose end. Currently they're all on standby watching a particularly ferocious one-on-one between Haizaki and Kise.

Unlike the one-on-one Aomine and Kise frequently engage in which draws spectators observing in bated breath, this one held a poignant, hair raising air to it that left most uneasy. The rest of Teikou may as well be biting their nails instead of ceremoniously clapping and whooping whenever an impossible shot is made. Practice more or less comes to a halt, an inevitability Akashi has learned to tolerate with time, the only noises being that of the two's rubber footfalls and heavy dribbling.

Haizaki's moves while powerful are stale and it's a reoccurring observation on Akashi's part. He also reeks of cheap nicotine. Meanwhile Kise's agility is an ever growing thing. He may still be running circles around the likes of Aomine but his natural aptitude is no joke given he's only been playing for several months. Despite the bumbling act, Akashi knows he is no fool. One cannot afford to be if they wanted to keep a job and maintain steady rapport in the media. Kise's well earned status as Tokyo's rising heartthrob isn't built on mere luck if his strength of will was anything to go by. Furthermore his work ethic leaves little to be desired. If anything the air headed attitude he prefers showcasing is something of a stratagem. 

Still for someone who is able to play his cards close to the heart Kise is transparent given the right provocation. While Aomine's words were crude they were never meant to disparage, Haizaki clearly intends to. Deliberately.

If Akashi were never held hostage to be at the end of his own father's demoralizing lectures this would almost be terrible to watch. In any case he stomachs it easily and Kise of all people doesn't rise to the bait. It's a 5-3. Kise loses, albeit with dignity and that counts more than anything.

Of course the matter of dignity is mostly tarnished when he accepts the offer of a towel from Kuroko with an ecstatic squeak before tripping over Aomine's slap to the back.

Haizaki stalks off in a flurry not even bothering to continue for the rest of the drills his training menu acquired of him. Midorima scowls at his departure. "Why Nijimura bothered with him I can't tell."

"Seconded," agrees Akashi. Haizaki has a knack for violence, the kind that inspires foul play and total disregard to the chain of command. "I'm thinking of poaching Kise for the regular line-up. His energy compliments Aomine's rather well as a small forward. And I'm quite optimistic of his learning curve."

Midorima states the obvious, "Haizaki will never give up his spot."

"Mankind like cockroaches are tenacious little beasts." The preamble had his vice's eyebrow raised into his hairline but Akashi only grins. "But Haizaki's greed is his downfall. He might have two points to spare today, but the gap between him and Kise is slowly but surely shrinking. He can posture all day long yet the truth remains clear. He will be surpassed by a newcomer of all things. There is no greater humiliation than that. I am certain he'd rather not face such a daunting prospect. Besides I have enough dirt on him to discredit him in front of the head coach. I have no doubt the school board will vouch for suspension should they know half of what he's up to in the streets."

While Akashi indeed made a good point Midorima frowns. "You shouldn't bet on it and risk a black eye." 

"It's flattering how much you worry sometimes. Unfortunately no amount of flattery will stop me." Akashi humors him with a smile. "Don't fret. Or do."

"Akashi, you have to reconsider-" He almost begs.

"Midorima." His name silences him. It may be the light catching his eyes, for the color of Akashi's irises in that moment might as well startle him into submission. Instead of warm mahogany he'd been captured in a strange discord of a pair, one eerily golden and the other a dilated whiskey. "I think I've gone past asking for your permission in every step I take. While I appreciate your counsel, you are my second. I do not need your approval. Do not forget that I am fully within my right to execute what I deem fit."

It's not that Midorima disagrees, on the contrary he's quite amiable to the change of roster. He understands Kise has talent in spades, heaps of potential that increases team synergy while Haizaki feeds off of nothing but chaos and therefore needs to be removed. But these things take well... tact.

What Akashi was proposing on the other hand is surprisingly underhanded and cruel. And blackmail? Was this the same person who patiently and proficiently braided Kaori's hair when Midorima failed to the task when she demanded a style as complicated as those worn in period dramas? It seems unthinkable to reconcile the two together.

The shutters of the gym are secured due to the brewing thunderstorm and Akashi exhales. His gaze loses its knife edge and morphs into something tempered and apologetic. "That- that was rude of me, Midorima. But in any case, we need to secure the championships. Haizaki is a liability, Kise Ryouta is a tool we can utilize. It's as simple as that. Please understand."

Midorima nods cooly. "I trust you'll forgive me if I won't bear witness to the act."

"Of course." Akashi looks relieved at the unsanctioned meeting, which in retrospect is another thing Midorima should have not so easily let slide.

To this date, he still doesn't know how the redhead had swiftly drove Haizaki to quit despite his deep seated envy over the inner circle of Teikou's elite. Midorima tries to picture the words Akashi would use, if his eyes would sharply glint with something like cold satisfaction, but he cannot find any that brings him peace of mind.

All he knew is by the time the league is in season, Midorima's protests, no matter how vocal are completely left on Akashi's deaf ears. For someone who used to sense his quiet discomfort and acted on his behalf, it's disconcerting.

Midorima waits for them to go back to the way they were, but it is a fatal miscalculation.

Because by this time next year, Akashi stares at him, devoid of compassion and Midorima realizes he doesn't recognize him at all.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Midorima doesn't remember it, but their first meeting had not been by the fated sign up sheet of Teikou's basketball club rather at a playground by the fashionably Western manor of one of Tokyo's media moguls.

It was a garden party and while the adults are talking with champagne flutes and the occasional parasol in hand the children were left to their own in the sprawling acres of pine cone infested hills, sand boxes and rope swings.

At eight Midorima's height mercifully allowed him to hide behind the hem of his mother's skirt, but she would only indulge him for so long before she had deposited him by the area in favor of walking by the apple grove in the company of her friends and his father's associates.

Midorima is not the only one disappointed by the abandonment for there is another child in a similar predicament, smartly dressed as well although he looks small enough to be in a playpen rather than roaming free. He is hugging a basketball to his chest almost possessively, sitting idle on a swing, looking at the floating clouds above. He seems to sense an audience however that he lowers his head. When their eyes lock, Midorima can't help but turn away. He hadn't been intruding on anything, but it felt like as if he were.

"I like your glasses," a girl says, blushing. "I'm Asami."

That's new.

A boy comes down from a tree branch and swipes said eye-wear. "What are you talking about, Asami? These are horrible!"

Now, that's nothing new.

And precisely why he hated these outings.

"Give them back," Midorima demands through gritted teeth, but the boy knows it's an empty warning given his compromised sight.

"Stop it, Kirishima!" Asami's attempt to deescalate the situation was unsuccessful. "Why would you do that?"

"Four eyes, four eyes! Bet you can't even tell grass from your hair without these, can you?" Kirishima plays keep-away and unluckily for Midorima size is not an advantage. The shorter boy was slippery, skipping sideways with little to no effort. It is almost an embarrassment. He's thankful for small mercies when he's able to close his eyes at the right moment when he sees the fistful of sand thrown in his approximate direction, taking his time to wipe them away before daring to blink.

"Hey!" Shouts a third party. For a second Midorima thought what would come up next is a scuffle, but he opens his eyes to the boy from the swing. Judging by his unmarred appearance he'd marched down to the site sometime ago but only thought to interfere now. "Want to trade?"

Surprisingly, the pragmatic solution works. The bargained object is much more interesting than a pair of spectacles to the average child. Kirishima all but makes grabby hands at the ball. The voice, oddly distinguished in youth speaks once more, "You first."

Kirishima acquiesces and the other boy chucks the ball in the opposite direction, as if playing fetch with a stray. A stray that is more likely to bite the hand that feeds it. The boy is certainly looking at Kirishima like one. Still Midorima understood the purpose of the gesture, to remove him from their proximity with as little force as possible. Kirishima is of course oblivious, beckoning his playmate to catch up. "Come on, Asami!"

Asami casts a regretful look over her shoulder to Midorima but he ignores it. The two soon made themselves scarce. This close Midorima's rescuer handles the glasses not gingerly but gently as if he'd done so with another pair. The velvety cloth he takes out of his pocket square confirms it as he wipes the lenses efficiently. He returns it to Midorima's hands then. "Here you go, good as new."

Midorima puts them back on and is met by peculiar eyes and a hair shade that's just as striking as his own. He doesn't have the chance to thank him when the harsh bark of a man dressed in a bespoke suit reaches them and the boy is violently tugged to follow his looming form. "Seijuurou, what on earth are you still doing here playing?! We're late to see your grandfather! You should know better you forgetful boy!"

 

 

* * *

 

 

Halfway through the catastrophe that is their third year Midorima weighs the possibilty of sabotage, if Akashi truly set them up to fail.

Five lights and a shadow.

The brilliance that would drown the dark and kill it needlessly.

The brilliance that would breed apathy and hatred and an infinite well of bonds broken beyond repair.

Why had Akashi let a perfect bright thing like them go to waste.

 

 

* * *

 

 

There is no defining moment where Midorima is hit with the revelation of how he has fallen irrevocably for his best friend.

But he supposed he could narrow it down to simpler human sensations. Akashi has always been a catalyst to foreign reactions, an uncontrolled variable he can't help but notice.

On the court Midorima could not divert his attention elsewhere. It's practically unheard of for freshmen to make it onto the regulars, yet there they were. There are four of them. Two months into practice and it's still the talk of the entire student body.

Aomine doesn't look like an islander, too much sun on his skin and too vulgar to be Japanese. He plays like he's born doing it, brazenly unorthodox and mesmerizing to see.

Murasakibara is a behemoth and a glutton. First impressions aside, he makes an incomparably dominant center.

Akashi is harder to comprehend. His stature marks him closer to ordinary than the rest, but his presence takes up just as much room if not more. He moves with grace and stunning precision, not a movement wasted but is clearly capable of brandishing more should he ever wanted to. But he knows his duty, that of a point guard, a play maker and does it remarkably. 

Midorima observes that on most days like him he is among the last to leave the gym. They're the only ones left and they pass the time in companionable silence. He finishes the last of his two dozen three point shots and strides for the bleachers. He eyes the opposite side of the court.

Akashi bounces the ball two yards behind the free throw line and dribbles in a hard sprint, leaping exceptionally high.

While normally a dunk is something he considers parlor tricks, to see it perfectly accomplished by a slender and arguably petite figure is a hallmark of true athleticism. Akashi lands on his feet, lithe as a cat. He turns and his knowing gaze leaves Midorima as exposed as a livewire.

In his short lifetime Midorima has already performed in a handful of recitals with legitimately professional critics present as well as his own mother's tough but fair opinion given her own stint as a concert pianist back in the day before she married and became a housewife with the occasional part time tutoring. He does not get stage fright.

Hence it does not explain anything when his stomach abruptly ties itself in knots and he's helplessly transfixed by the approaching steps of the boy. Sweat is dripping off his jaw in a smooth trail, staining the dark gray shirt further that it clung tight onto rather formed musculature. His clavicles in particular are a sight for sore eyes. Objectively there's no part of Akashi that isn't painfully attractive at the moment.

"Would you like to go over tomorrow's biology quiz with me after we clean up?" Akashi smiles invitingly. "I'm afraid I bore too easily studying on my own. And I was hoping perhaps we could maybe grab a bite to eat together. As teammates and friends."

For the record Midorima does not hiccup. "I would be most amenable to that."

They don't get much done of course and Midorima rather guessed Akashi needed the preparation as much as he did, which is to say none given both their academic standing in the prefecture. The chapter had been dry and easily reviewed by the first fifteen minutes while waiting for their meal. The restaurant is fairly private, with fewer patrons tonight and zero student population apart from them that privacy while generally scant is rather easy to come by.

"My sister," Midorima huffs, the disdain plain in his inflection. "Is a primadonna."

Admittedly Akashi lacks empathy in the field given being an only child. If anything he finds the tantrum over the hair ribbon cute and the ballet video adorable. "She's six, Midorima. And studying a skill paramount to personality development. Give it time."

"I wish I'd told my mother that before she decided on paying for the academy."

"What about you? Given any thought to your future career?" Akashi folds his hands primly over the tabletop, expression seemingly in thought. "I'm going to guess, correct me if I'm wrong. Todai. Accelerated residency."

"How could you tell?" Was it that obvious?

"It's just a prediction. You have very nice hands, a surgeon's hands. And I take it if we're going for the traditional route, most sons are to follow in their father's footsteps."

"I'd like to. I mean my father encouraged it, but he's also allowed me to pursue other things should I wish to."

Akashi's smile turns brittle at that and Midorima wonders if he's missing something. The conversation shifts before he could address it and true to form Akashi hounds him with the polite enthusiasm of an expert journalist. "Tell me about your mother."

Midorima only comes to the realization after he's arrived home. That despite the myriad of topics Akashi freely expressed his own ideas about, not once had he spoke of his own family.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Early on in their relationship Midorima understands Akashi is a tactician.

A cold blooded tactician not immune to the thrall of guerrilla warfare. He discovers talent the way the combined effect of a scout, personal trainer and coach would, then tripled.

Later on in their relationship Midorima understands Akashi is capable of monstrous acts.

They were all monsters, but Akashi facilitated whatever twisted mockery of the game over half of their own occupied themselves with simply because it was amusing.

Meiko Chugakko is but a mere recipient of their entertainment, collateral damage, no one they needn't concern themselves with as Akashi would say.

Midorima overhears Aomine yelling at Kuroko as if the boy was the dirt beneath his feet, the words sink, sink for as long as what might amount up to a forever in their misplaced youth and found himself grinding his teeth.

Kuroko runs. Akashi lets him, for he has no further use for an unwilling pawn and Midorima wonders if that was all they were to him. Pawns to be picked up when convenient and neglected the moment they performed less than his expectations discerned, usefulness outlived.

After graduation they all swear an oath.

Midorima imagines what would it be like if they never developed a penchant for victory, a craving for it, and ponders whether he would be willing to sacrifice its collective experience for surely it would have never tasted so foul and bitter as it did then.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Two years pass in a haze of adrenaline, soporific intermissions of classwork and the stupidity of a varsity team made up of hormonal teenagers. Midorima, although he'd rather jump into a vat of acid than deign proclaiming it aloud, unabashedly enjoys the inclusion of an informal social group. Their team is a barrage of personalities that explodes on bad days but mesh together into a well oiled machine on most. They're close-knit enough to sweat, bicker, wrestle and in Kuroko and Kise's case, suffer nosebleeds in each other's presence when training intensifies.

But this, just the two of them, is something immeasurably more precious.

"Play something you've never played before," is the quiet murmur on his shoulder. Akashi is heavy lidded and red eyed from lack of sleep.

Finals were brutal for the average pupil, but Akashi is not just a pupil. He's captain of a nationally winning basketball team, the president of the student council and he bears the burden of being groomed as heir of a multinational conglomerate.

Frankly more than eighty percent of the adults Midorima has met have less of a workload than Akashi does and he's barely fourteen years of age. Right now he looks it too, ready to fall asleep but fighting it with no more than the power of childish stubbornness.

Midorima's repertoire has expanded over the years. He's learned songs that challenge him and those that only serve to soothe Kaori when she's in one of her moods. This is a compromise between the two, leaning slightly to the latter. The notes are gliding feather-light strokes, a fine bridge between saccharine and melancholy.

In minutes, Akashi is out like a light.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Midorima lays down the daisies with an inordinate amount of care onto the base of the shrine.

Behind him Akashi is still sitting cross legged under the shade of the ancient cherry blossom tree, fingers clutching a handful of fallen petals. Akashi inadvertently makes himself small like this that when Midorima kneels down to join him, mindful of his uniform's dress pants, he feels awkward, silly and slow, like a lumbering, unwelcome giant.

Of course Akashi puts a stop to his train of thought. "They're lovely. Thank you."

Midorima pressed his hands to his trousers, no doubt creating creases in the fabric. "I am sorry for your loss."

For some reason, the words, so often spoken to Akashi in a more or less impersonal manner given their quantity over the years do not irritate him. Midorima's nerves, cloying and juvenile, while unnecessary also professed nothing but sincerity.

Akashi has been a lot of things to a lot of people. Clever, charming, captivating. He is rarely if never honest. Midorima is the first person he wants to be that to. So he doesn't say anything, doesn't say it's all in the past.

Instead he reaches out a hand, covers Midorima's larger one with his own, squeezes minutely and gives him a glassy eyed smile. "Thank you for being here."

No one else ever is.

Akashi doesn't tell him that. Doesn't tell him all the things that cross his mind, the things that claim him in the empty spaces that fill his fairly battered chest.

This is a love so terrible and profound it leaves you hollow the moment it's ripped apart from you. The kind that leaves you in pieces. Irrecoverable. That this is what happens when you build your life, your home, your hopes in someone else. That even among all these riches, the mansion of a house gathering dust in most of its rooms and a wine cellar so frequently abused, he wants nothing more than to disappear on most days. That he hasn't felt safe in an eternity and he thinks this is the first time I want to look for it again in someone else, in you, but I am so, so afraid to my bones.

"Can I-" Whatever hesitation Midorima has in the question is swept away in favor of what he must see in Akashi's face. "Can I hold you?"

Akashi surrenders, quietly and fully, and feels warm for once after so long. Midorima gathers him into his lap, tucking his chin above his head and breathes into his hair. He feels the intermittent shudders of dry sobs that reverberates through Akashi's back and into his chest, saying nothing, but giving him everything.

 

 

* * *

 

 

If time and time again Akashi reminds him of a young god, a miracle, then beneath the shadow of that sakura tree, the grief cleaved so deeply into weary eyes, Midorima finally remembers he is heartbreakingly human.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The mental break happens like this.

They're collecting equipment and mopping up sweat in a fairly austere atmosphere from the rain.

"Honestly, what is going on? Letting Aomine-cchi play in games whether or not he comes to practice?" Kise's grumbles are futile but understandable considering that's what the majority of them had been thinking.

Akashi who has made his distaste for the rampant policy abundantly clear with his often soundless but curt disapproval addresses him, "I don't know what the head coach's real intent is, but I can't stand it either."

"About that..." Murasakibara's unprecedented laziness rears its ugly head when he whines in front of the whole club or at least those who remain in attendance, "If Mine-chin doesn't have to practice as long as we win games then I don't want to either."

Akashi glares at the center, making decidedly intimidating steps towards him. "Don't be daft. I can't possibly allow that."

"Why not?" While Murasakibara should have known better than to disobey their leader and wouldn't conceive such a notion in the past, he has changed. They all have. "I don't feel I'll ever lose at all. Besides I've at least listened to you until now, Aka-chin, because I knew I'd never be able to win against you."

The implication if not already made somewhere within that statement, is certainly made explicit when Murasakibara continued with, "But lately it feels maybe that is no longer the case."

Akashi's jaw stiffens.

The worst crime is that Murasakibara looks close to yawning. "I don't want to follow orders from people weaker than me."

"What was that?" That growl had sucked all of the remaining oxygen in the gymnasium, leaving the air thick with tension.

Midorima would be lying to himself if he didn't expect it. He's seen the cracks in Akashi before. They're prominent enough for him to take note of but not severe enough to act drastically for he returns to civility after a temporary bout of unusual malice.

He should have done something before it came to what ensues next.

Thankfully Momoi's desperate outburst overlaps with the open mouthed shock and the more heated outcry of their audience with Midorima, Kise and their more direct retinue belonging to the former. "Mu-kun! This is a joke, right?"

Akashi whose head had been down then, possibly in contemplation, lifts his gaze, now determined and irresolute. "If I have to pin you down by force then it is exactly what I will do." He looks ready to put him in his place. "Don't be so conceited." He slams the ball into linoleum, making a calculated threat. "One-on-one. Five points to win."

While some of the more simplistic onlookers are excited to see the match between their revered captain and the center, Midorima is on a different page. Several other members who could sense the impending disaster were there too. For while this had the means to make an example of Murasakibara's defiance and reestablish Akashi's authority, it also had the means to alter and ruin all of it beyond imagination. This confrontation is sobering and ought to be treated with caution.

Murasakibara is never one to back down from a challenge, rising up to it with his usual roundabout carelessness.

However the spectacle they are about to witness is jarring at its finest and damaging at its worst.

Murasakibara's height allowed him to merely skip and skim the net, landing shots effortlessly. But Akashi is no slouch even against such an opponent. Refined in diction and nearly all things, his basketball is no exception to the rule.

Though the point spread quickly unravels, becoming painfully large. Commemorated in marker on their clipboard is 0-4.

"Impossible..."

Once again Kise speaks for all of them, his words a panicked hush. "I didn't think it would be this one-sided."

The members are outright gasping at this point when Murasakibara foils Akashi's basket at the eleventh hour for the umpteenth time. It seems that their fate is sealed.

Akashi is hunched over, hands fighting purchase on his knees, neckline to back soaked and breathing hard. Meanwhile Murasakibara hasn't broken a sweat. "This is a little... No, quite... Disappointing." He gives a pitying look below. "It's impossible to listen to someone who could only go so far." He spins to dribble once more as if the whole ordeal had been nothing but a small inconvenience to his day's plans. "Oh, well... I make this shot and I'll do whatever I want as promised, anyway."

This is it, Midorima thinks. Akashi has never lost against anyone, but this might be another monumental change they'll just have to acclimate themselves to.

But Akashi cannot accept defeat, will not and paralysis might as well be a tantamount admission of it. Still it's what he looks like at the moment, frozen somewhere no one could reach him.

In truth a lifetime of pressure swivels and the voices scream in colors and Akashi gives in. It had been so easy to give in all this time, to become the things that made him fear his father, to rid himself of every ounce of weakness that gave reason for everyone else to hurt him. No more empathy, no more excuses. No more of this inability to subjugate those within his arsenal. No more childish sentimentality and this attachment to friendships and camaraderie.

He will not be conquered, he will not be tamed. He will be invincible even if it kills him.

Midorima watches Akashi snap to emerge victorious and simultaneously frighten those present. Somehow he emulates the divine gift of omniscience, the game turned on its wheel. Without moving any other part of him his palm struck the ball from a previously iron hold. It falls out of bounds to dead silence.

"What-" Kise trailed off. "What just happened?"

Midorima has no idea.

Akashi twirls the ball in a fine tuned clutch contrary to the low scathing tone he's using. "You're getting a bit carried away, Atsushi. Don't get me too angry."

Midorima stares ahead and realizes.

This is how you alienate everyone around you.

Akashi isn't quite finished. "Anyone who acts against me is never forgiven, even if they are my parents."

They've long fought on the subject of forgiveness and obligation and the shame of abuse, in fact Midorima is completely content with Akashi never forgiving his existing parent for all he's done to him and none for him, no love lost there, but this isn't quite how he wants Akashi to come to grips with the situation.

Akashi springs into action, not the slightest bit breathless as if his stamina is suddenly restored or a ghost had taken possession of his body. They've always had glimpses here and there of his capabilities. An unrivaled strength in footwork and ball handling, dizzying crossovers to the untrained eye that will knock a person out of balance, jumps that assume the range of the tallest in their group, smooth accuracy and clockwork precision whenever he sends the ball sailing. And most importantly an uncannily driven mind for preemptive dominion.

But in games Akashi never showboats, being conscientious of his role in the court. This time he doesn't hold anything back. The perfectly timed passes feel terribly pedestrian at this point.

Murasakibara ends up lying on the floor on his back so many times they no longer keep track. He's winded, lung capacity reduced to scraps in the blink of an eye. He's unable to defend, let alone attack.

Akashi makes up for lost time in what seems like nothing at all. Then it ends.

When all is said and done, Murasakibara kicks the rack of bottles, the echoing clatter of its disposition marking an otherwise quiet aftermath. There's no further indignant anger aside from the display, in fact his shoulders though a feet above the average player are slightly slumped and he waves off to them. "Well, I'm done for the day. Good work."

Momoi calls for Murasakibara's retreating back. "Wait, Mu-kun!"

"I'm telling you it's fine if I show up to practice like usual tomorrow, right?"

In theory, yes. But the balance has already been shaken quite irreversibly.

"No, I am calling that off." Everyone immediately zeroes in on Akashi, including Murasakibara. Midorima couldn't believe his ears or his eyes for that matter. Akashi is smiling. "Do as you like. As long as we win our games."

Murasakibara grunts at that, for what had been the purpose of the duel he was just slaughtered in?

"What are you talking about?" Midorima couldn't keep silent. Just less than a half hour ago he was on the opposite end of such a dilemma. "You just said..."

Instead Akashi regards them with something like manic glee as if bestowing benevolent lenience rather than the insult he was serving all of their hard work. "The same goes for both Shintarou and Ryouta. All actions will be glossed over as long as we win our games."

The whole club is rendered speechless.

Akashi is entirely apathetic to the stunned reception. "At our level, it is more of a waste of time to force everyone to get in step. It is more efficient to just stop adjusting."

"You can't be serious!" The voice of reason turned out to be Eiji, a diligent but lackluster player, unremarkable but still worthy of respect. "It sounds like you don't want to have team play anymore!"

Those eyes. Midorima realizes it was never a mirage. One had been burnished amber, but both were unfeeling, all seeing in cold blood. "That is correct. For the Generation of Miracles, team play is nothing but a hindrance."

 

 

* * *

 

 

Kuroko returns without Aomine, utterly drenched and looking like someone desecrated him.

From his peripheral Midorima finds Akashi smirking.

 

 

* * *

 

 

"What the hell was that?" Kise sputters back in the locker room, changing into a fresh shirt. "It's like we're dealing with someone else! He's a completely different person!"

While usually he would tear a new one to Kise for shouting into what is essentially his ear given their neighboring cabinets, he does not do so this time.

Midorima has never dare toy with the idea, but what Kise is saying aligns all the facts. Akashi who has never once exuded arrogance is now delivering it in his own personal brand, clearly without the remorse a decent human being would show over destroying anyone in their path. And that's what Akashi did these days. Telling Kuroko Aomine is beyond fixing, but not entirely useless. Giving the new head coach hell in all but name. Blocking Nijimura's number when their former captain prudently investigated though oceans away despite having been so fond of their upperclassman before.

This is exactly what it is. Another person. A split personality.

God help them.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Midorima tries.

They play shogi in their meeting room exactly once after that. He loses so badly, the game is a quarter of its usual length. Akashi isn't even trying, lacking the in-depth concentration he would normally try to and fail to mask in his expression.

Instead it's serene, as if he's not really there, even a little coy as though this failed to entertain him. "Something you'd like to say, Shintarou?"

Midorima merely replies, "Congratulations on graduating 1st rank in the prefecture."

You're sick. You're sick and I don't know how to help you, is what he wants to say.

Akashi sees through his fib but lets it go and walks away with a tile in hand. "I look forward to seeing you in the Interhigh."

 

 

* * *

 

 

They brush by each other in the hallways, the hum of electricity turning Midorima's steps into lead. Akashi is unaffected, he always is.

Looking back on it Midorima knows exactly what this is. He can feel it in the very air that he breathes, feel it twisting into his bones.

This is how you become strangers to one another.

 

 

* * *

 

 

He finishes all grade levels of the Trinity program, breezing past his final exam and attaining his diploma. Nearing summer he has a lot more free hours than he used to given the disbandment of the Generation of Miracles as well. Shuutoku is a fine choice, but he can't avoid the lingering weight of regret. It overflows one evening in the solitude of his father's waiting office on the rare days he has nothing scheduled for the rest of the night except for one quick check-up appointment or two much later.

"He's sick."

Midorima Tadashi, reclined in his leather chair whilst inspecting a series of MRI scans, doesn't even have to ask who at this point. "Then have him come in. Sanada will look him over."

He glances over his son's form, huddled on the couch, retreating into himself as much as his long limbs would allow and places the film back into its folder, giving him his undivided attention.

"He-" Shintarou has never been timid but this feels like a gulf spill of some kind. "He demolished team morale. He calls everyone by their first names. He's using _boku_."

While he has always wanted to be his son's confidant Tadashi is understandably unprepared for this turn of events because regardless of how this ascended into another realm of oddities, a mild mannered boy changing overnight, he did not think it had any cause for alarm. Frankly if they've known each other long enough he doesn't see the trouble of them going by a first name basis. There might be something Shintarou has been doing wrong otherwise.

Tadashi pointed out, "I call you by your first name, Shintarou. And I don't think changing prefixes is all that significant."

Shintarou bristles. "That's different! You gave birth to me."

"I believe it was your mother who did all the work, but thank you." Tadashi could see that his attempt at humor did not console him the slightest and left his station, joining the boy by the divan. "I'm sorry. You can always come to me for anything."

Shintarou takes off his glasses, wiping them with a napkin, his poorly concealed anguish evident despite the lack of waterworks, no doubt thinking himself too old for it. "You've met him. You'd know the difference in a heartbeat."

"I've met him at his worst," Tadashi reminded. That wasn't a night he'd like to remember, but it isn't one he should forget. He would be selfish to do that. He's a father. He didn't even need to be one to understand the sanctity of fatherhood to know better. "I've never seen him competitive. Or temperamental. It might be a combination of factors. You're young, it happens. And people change."

"Not like this," Shintarou whispers, adamant. "This isn't him." This isn't natural ambition or anything remotely appropriate of character growth. Akashi, the Akashi he knew was not a... a beast. There's no other way of putting it. This is a different Akashi. He cuts to the chase. "He's dissociating. There's two of him."

Tadashi knows Shintarou does not make judgments lightly, he thought long and hard and came to the most viable conclusion. But a multiple personality disorder? Post-traumatic stress sure, generalized anxiety disorder and depression, he could see them. He'd been willing to branch out and provide psychiatric aid alongside a colleague for just that when Seijuurou had been brought in. The diagnosis of a multiple personality disorder however is something out of those jump scare thrillers featuring enigmatic British detectives hunting down serial killers Haruka likes so much. It didn't belong in real life and when it did Tadashi couldn't connect the dots to a boy of fifteen. "Are you sure?"

"Completely." Tadashi has always viewed Shintarou's loyalty as a hard earned thing, near priceless, but when won, it is won unconditionally. "Isn't there anything we can do?"

Tadashi knows Shintarou knows the answer to that. He's told him that night, told him despite how difficult it was to. He's certain he doesn't need to repeat it. And if there were indeed a solution, he wouldn't be here and would be out there applying whatever that could be.

"If he's willing to comply to treatment, then it's manageable." Not solvable. "But I take it he isn't or you would have brought him here with you."

The teenager scoffs at his luck, eyeing the rabbit plushie by his bag with something akin to scorn.

Tadashi won't enable anymore of this sulking and pulls him to his feet. "Come on. Let's go for dinner. There's a ramen place with ice cream across the street."

One of the things Shintarou has done in a feat of self discipline is exercise abstinence from sugar despite his sweet tooth, staying clear of invoking genes inclined towards diabetes. Haruka just doesn't want him with a round belly under a performance tuxedo set which is preposterous given his pastime shooting hoops. Tadashi throws that out the window with no more than a thought, buying him a shiruko flavored cone for dessert.

"You can't bribe me from stress. I'm not Kaori." Shintarou raised an eyebrow at the insistence of three scoops. Perhaps that was a little excessive. "And mother would say you're spoiling me."

"Your mother isn't here." Tadashi grins into his own dark chocolate ice. "So... Shuutoku... You've gone to campus for the interview, right? Do they still have my picture in the alumnus hall?"

 

 

* * *

 

 

"You can't help someone who doesn't want to be saved."

 

 

* * *

 

 

They argue.

In a relationship or not they argue, more so in their second year because Midorima isn't visually impaired and can think of plenty of reasons, each one worse than the last regarding why Akashi abstains from the necessary evil that is communal showers, why he is dressed in sweaters even at the height of summer.

They do fight spectacularly when Akashi comes late to training camp, the afternoon having came and went with the sun, the side of one cheek reddened in what faintly resembles a fading hand print.

It turned out to be due to a comment from a particularly pompous donor at the foundation gala, specifically over burning said bridge by default after rebuking the aforementioned comment. While Akashi normally has a better filter than that given his frequency attending socialite functions, the comment had been directed to his mother and that, that was holy ground.

Masaomi only shifted the hand on his shoulder into something fierce. Akashi is rather peculiar with the sensation of losing feeling in his arms from making too many baskets, but this numbness doesn't fill him with the relief of having outdone himself, only dread on the trip back from Kyoto.

He is all too enthusiastic to board the Shinkansen for the location of their week-long excursion Momoi texted him which turned out to be a lovely set of cabins in the mountain snow. Yes, excursion. Teikou's training camp was as vicious as they come but to Akashi it was much more preferable than the alternative of staying behind.

Akashi cannot reject it when Masaomi catches him by the vestibule before he leaves, offering a ride, to personally drive him. In normal circumstances and normal households this is no issue. This is neither, Akashi reminds himself. He sits upright in the passenger seat, answering in proper cues when his father engages him in conversation. He almost forgets himself by the time they arrive, almost forgets that this is no coincidencal father-son bonding no matter how stilted.

Almost.

His father helps him remember when Akashi is backhanded just seconds after unlatching his seat belt, the back of his skull meeting the car window from the impact. "Don't ever talk back. If you try to be smart and repeat what happened yesterday... Well, you won't like the consequences. You do enjoy Teikou, don't you? Wouldn't it be a shame if their captain resigned?"

He's still out of it when his duffel bag is tossed out of the trunk and the Maserati leaves at full speed. It's still a blur as Akashi makes his way inside the lodge, heading for the men's room. Upon washing his hands he's too late to realize he had unwanted company. The shooting guard is the last person he wants to see at the moment. The sight of him sends Akashi to clarity.

Midorima sizes him up with laser sharp focus and corners him with no reluctance. "What happened?"

The question is a demand, Akashi does not have to give in to it, but it takes everything out of him not to scream or look away or commit something equally pathetic. So he chooses poison, the type that makes others look at you and think you weren't quite born right, spits out barbs.

The story leaks just the same.

"A parting gift from a concerned parent." Concern over his reputation and his corporate account goes unsaid. "I'd take it as positive reinforcement."

Akashi realizes he has never seen Midorima angry, but right now he is livid. How could he not be when beneath all the bravado, all the smoke and mirrors Akashi is being used as someone's punching bag? "Will you just stop _defending_ him?!"

Despite the anger being on his behalf, Akashi ignores it in favor of grasping at straws, of clinging onto a sad life of being mistreated whenever he does something, one small thing that makes him feel human, a life of letting his father beat him, choke him if he pleases. "Will _you_ stop nosing around other people's business?"

"I'm your friend, Akashi," Midorima says lowly. "I deserve to know. And you deserve none of this. When will you get that through your thick head?"

"Don't flatter yourself," Akashi shot back. "I have plenty of those." Midorima snorts, which is the equivalent of a no, you don't. And Akashi swears if he could he'd strangle himself right now just to escape the rest of this talk. "Move."

Midorima plants himself like a tree and doesn't budge. It doesn't help that Akashi knows those leg muscles are rock solid since he had been the one to craft his cardio regimen. "I'm not leaving until you tell me you've changed your mind and that you'll do something about it. I'll help you report it to the authorities. My father can help with the administrative requirements. We have a medical attorney."

Like that will somehow settle every wrong thing in his life. Akashi surpasses Midorima's earlier fury, his own tranquil. Did he think it would be that easy? Didn't he have any idea of who his father was? Their family owned so much of Kyoto and a good chunk of Tokyo that Akashi is quite certain law enforcement is compromised. At the mention of their name, his mother's name, the one Masaomi married her for, no one would look further even if they threw a body bag at the precinct. Akashi does not want to continue thinking on that line of thought and reminds himself that he's too useful to his father to dispose. He's his only heir, he's Shiori's only bloodline. He needed him. But he wouldn't mind him a little broken or a lot. Like a good horse to an imbecile rider who favored the crop too much. To his pride Akashi has never relied on such methods with Yukimaru. He fancies a dream where his mother is alive, that if his mother were alive, neither would his father.

He laughs. It's a reckless thing and he doesn't bother to abort the contempt that floods it. "That, Midorima... That is infinitely the most foolish thing to have ever come out of your mouth."

This is something out of a nightmare, is what comes to Midorima. "You're the fool, Akashi!"

"It's my life!" The only surprise here is how the manager does not check in to find out the cause of the disturbance given how loud they are. If one of the staff does appear Akashi will blame it on Midorima who started it.

Midorima hisses, "And you are all but gambling with it!"

"Stop telling me what to do!" Akashi shouts. "You're not my boyfriend!"

It's a small slip-up. But it is one nonetheless. If being in a relationship with Akashi is a weapon that will gain his trust, his consent for this then Midorima sorely rues the day he found Akashi is a prince of the imperial line, rues having read that stupid textbook, rues standing by the terms he set and they agreed on, even rues having get to kiss Akashi on that rooftop.

Maybe that last regret is a lesser one, yet he'd offer its tribute if it meant having Akashi and having him whole. Midorima wants the ammunition, wants it like nothing else and finds himself asking, "Will that do it then?"

At that Akashi finds the blood thumping through his veins a little harder, a little slower. Time crystallizes and stops. It gets worse when Midorima inches closer, leaning down to almost bodily press into him. He's broader, bigger. Their noses are nearly touching. Akashi feels his breath tickling his upper lip. Midorima has never seen him trapped like this, immobilized by nothing more than his gaze. He has him at his fingertips and welcomes the rush of power it brings. It's intoxicating. "If we were together, would you have listened to me? Is that it?"

And the moment breaks. Midorima counts himself lucky that Akashi only pushed them apart instead of landing a blow on him. It was never his style anyway, especially in light of what he's had to endure and Midorima sobers. More than anything he regrets ending what they almost had and losing whatever remaining chance of rekindling anything like it even if they were swimming in a sea of sparks. Because Akashi won't only push him away physically. Akashi will push him away in all the ways that matter.

"I hate you." If it's a lie, it's a damn good one. Akashi is closer to tears than he's ever recalled seeing. Conscious of it too as he swerves past him the way a cannon fodder would barrel through a brigade.

Midorima doesn't block his path to the door, knowing he's done enough.

 

 

* * *

 

 

He hasn't.

 

 

* * *

 

 

By some cosmic probability Midorima doesn't come within five foot of Akashi for the remainder of camp unless it's for meals, doesn't get to bunk with him and is virtually robbed of his existence.

They go back to school and it's even worse because Akashi has somehow been authorized independent study meaning he's in the library doing advanced placement assignments when the rest of them are in an actual lesson then out the building gates the exact moment the bell rings. He disappears, delegating the haphazard plate of student council duties to Ayumi. He may or may not be taking advantage of her all too visible crush on him, written in neon lights since the opening ceremony their first year.

Midorima employs patience, going about his routine. If he stays even later than usual, the gym completely deserted save for his lone presence, then he'll privately attribute it to pent up frustration. This frustration gets him somewhere however that he's grateful.

It's at the last of daylight when Akashi shows up sporting a cotton pullover, loose threadbare jeans that substituted sweatpants and trainers. If he seems surprised Midorima is there he doesn't show it. Then again surprised or not, Akashi regularly operates with a single minded obstinacy. If he wanted to clock in some practice then he'll do it no matter what distraction presents itself.

Midorima will not confront him but it's harmless to just share his company like this. Despite having their backs to one another doing their own exercises in their respective half of the court, it's the most time he's spent with Akashi since their last altercation.

It's poetic justice Akashi isn't the one distracted, but Midorima is. He can't avoid pausing after a shot or releasing too late prior. He even considers traveling the lane to baseline cut backs to get a better view but then that would be some very obvious spying. Midorima refrains from the urge and forces the echoing noise he hears as well as the side glances he could steal of him to prove adequate.

Akashi is moving in a series of feints, albeit a notch slower than his prime, before going for a signature fast break then finishing it with a one handed layup. Midorima knows what to expect. The ball will hit the middle of the backboard before sinking perfectly into the net. What happens instead is it's launched, rhythm off, dangling on the rim before circling it and falling in, barely.

The jump, the extension of the throw is a strain on him but it's nothing like the moment his feet makes contact with the floor and a wave of vertigo assaults him. 

Midorima crosses the paint in a mad sprint as Akashi collapses, catching him before he hits hard wood.

He comes to in less than a minute, just as pale, realizes just whose arms he's in and flinches. "Don't touch me."

When Akashi manages to throw himself off of his lap, Midorima lets him. However when the resounding thud of his hip connecting with the ground resulted in a wince that has had him biting his lip as if to suppress a shriek, he has had it.

Panic is unseemly, but that is the state Akashi falls into. A normal person save for the bold few at his father's business gatherings would never dream of propositioning him like this. But this is Midorima and Akashi will not mistake his touch for someone else. He doesn't even remove his top completely, just lifts the end of it to provide the opportunity of inspecting his midsection. "Hold still."

Akashi can't help but to obey although it is still quite possibly the most spiteful look Midorima has ever been at the end of that he receives from him. Midorima cares little for Akashi's comfort then, for it's especially clear that he should not have been working out or simply even be standing. How the hell had he done it? Sheer force of will that probably got him into this mess in the first place.

His left side beginning from his sternum right down to his pelvis is a patchwork of staggering discoloration. The newest of the collection of bruises are so dark, Midorima isn't sure if they were purple or black. The rest is mottled skin and he frowns when he sees it expanding to his backside. He examines him as gently as he is able to between the hollow of his ribs and goes down a lateral trail around as much as he could cover. "Nothing's broken." The certainty is a infinitesimal blessing. "But your hip is fractured." He almost didn't want to ask, didn't want to know because Akashi won't ever let him stop it, but he had to. "How did you come by these injuries?"

"A piano is..." Akashi grimaces. "Not as lovely of a surface to land on than one would think."

Midorima no longer wants to prosecute Masaomi. He wants to murder him. "What is it this time?"

The whys don't mean anything, Midorima understands. There is always a why and Akashi will never get out if he doesn't leave. Yet Masaomi is a creature of habit and this, causing such visible damage that interferes with Akashi's day-to-day was out of character. He knew how to keep his dirty laundry under wraps, perfected it to an art form that this was careless.

Still to attract punishment of this caliber however must've meant Akashi had done something extremely deliberating.

"I called off the betrothal." If Midorima's ears perk at that he's only human. Akashi detects his interest and of all things looks pleased despite his condition. "Said I would only marry Misaki the day she found herself endowed with the male genitalia."

Midorima chokes. Recites Fibonacci's sequence. Laughter would be indelicate.

Akashi is enjoying this. "Her mother threw a pot of jasmine at my face to mark the end of the house call. Lukewarm, no worries. Their family is only a minor noble so apparently the valuable broodmare turned out to be me. Father was unable to find the humor in spite of minimal casualty as I've already refrained from declaring my proclivities at a public luncheon. Nothing the reporters will get a hold of and certainly nothing a generous sum couldn't fix."

Midorima's sigh is long suffering. "You fool."

Akashi chuckles and is about to slip into unbecoming laughter. Midorima would have let him make fun of the gravity of the situation if that is what will get him to survive. He only wished Akashi would want more than just survive and live. Only the sound devolves into a pained wheeze, having aggravated his wounds in the process.

Midorima blurts out, "Come home with me." One of Akashi's eyebrows raised itself judgmentally high at the request. "Just-" Midorima yields to his impulse, for seeing Akashi like this is unparalleled incentive to start sprouting gray in his hair. He cannot in good conscience leave him to his devices like this. "Just let me look after you. Since you obviously cannot look after yourself."

Akashi doesn't have the privilege to feel insulted. It's true. And while he loathes having to lean on anyone, he admits he would have to concede to Midorima's assistance. They've been sitting for how long now and his knees still wobble whenever he attempts to arrange himself into something closer to vertical. Unless he wanted to keep writhing where he laid like a fish out of water then he had to decide. "Alright. Help me get to the bathroom first though."

Midorima deflates, glad for he thought he needed to rationalize and quarrel further to get them there. "I don't always have to needle you after all."

An admiring tilt of the head. "Your skills of manipulation are growing, Midorima. You ought to celebrate."

Then Akashi lets Midorima take over, keenly maneuvering them that he may support his weight without adding pressure to where he's hurt. It doesn't completely work because Akashi hurts all over but the pain falls into the safe category if by the narrowest margin, no longer making him see white when he stands. Midorima is possibly god sent. Akashi would have applauded him if he had the energy to spare.

The journey to the men's urinals is an awkward one. Midorima weathers through it by scheming the various ways they can apportion the club budget to improve sanitation in the changing room. The dirty socks incident made by the more irresponsible individuals of their line up serves as effective argument for the need. Maybe rebooting ventilation and installing automatic fresheners.

He means to give Akashi privacy as he relieves himself. He does look back guiltily when his instincts force him to. Maybe Akashi has trouble keeping balance. The guilt evaporates when he realizes there's red going down the drain. "You're urinating blood."

Akashi shook his head as if it's old news. "A minor side effect."

Midorima hovers over him when he washes up by the basin after zipping up. "Of internal bleeding!"

It's not a screech, it's three octaves too low but the effect is similar. Sometimes Akashi despises that Midorima is an aspiring neurosurgeon. The hand dryer is suddenly too far and for once Akashi slovenly wipes down the moisture on his pants. "Don't be dramatic. It will take care of itself in a few hours."

Akashi sounds so sure as if he's a veteran to this. Midorima supposed he is and hates the universe a little more for it. "Fine, whatever you say. Come on."

They switch back into their earlier lump this time with their belongings in tow and make it to the nondescript sedan Akashi points them to. It's one of the less conspicuous luxury vehicles among his father's garage and the only one Akashi will ever allow their chauffeur to use with him.

"Say nothing about this and get off your shift two hours earlier, how does that sound?"

Wu nods. "Very well, young master."

That takes care of it at least. His father just boarded a flight to the States and Wu is a simpleton. The driver is one of Akashi's least favorite given his habit of smoking tobacco even when he has told him he finds the odor repulsive. Truly a dense man. Still Akashi does not regret persuading his father into giving Yamada his bonus alongside an engorged stipend before rescinding his employment last spring. The old man had been postponing retirement for him Akashi has come to notice with the reserved but constant ire he expressed whenever Masaomi gets rough with him.

Akashi thought him senile. And effusively kind.

He slumps into the backseat and lets Midorima list off his address.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Akashi doesn't remember letting him tuck them together or wrap an arm around him, but that is how he wakes up when they reach their destination.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The Midorima residence is a palette of bronzes and silvers with accents of cream. It's a two story unit, with enough space to accommodate a family and a guest or two, decorated in an organic blend of traditional and modern finishes like the herb garden installed by the kitchen area. They have a normal foyer not a salon, a study room instead of a library, a terrace with a stone fountain and parking lot accommodating two rather than ten. The place feels like a home and not a museum. The furniture is top of the line but well worn, befitting a lived in property. The occasional splash of fever bright colors from Kaori's budding artist pinned onto the fridge and framed canvases placed on the living room credenza making it even more so.

Akashi could stay here forever. But that's probably the fatigue talking.

After making him take an ibuprofen and drink a third of a bottle Midorima half escorts, half pulls him into his bedroom, not even letting him face plant into the mattress, promptly steering them to the en suite bathroom. He deposits him by the edge of the tub.

Akashi belatedly makes his confusion known after adjusting to the lighting. It's a bit much after having seen in tunnel vision on and off again hence the delay. "Are we taking a bath?"

"No," says Midorima. "I just don't trust you won't fall off on your own."

"Touché." Akashi assumes, "Shower then."

Midorima nods. He strips with the discipline of a military man, even if throwing his clothes into the hamper doesn't fit the bill. Akashi for some reason is smothering a laugh. Midorima snaps, "What?"

They've seen each other naked before. They're both filthy and it seems like a waste of time, utterly redundant if they were to wash separately instead of just going at once.

"You are a fine specimen and I am eternally grateful to see you naked before the third date," says Akashi, completely serious. "All to myself no less."

Midorima turns a furious shade of crimson. "Akashi!"

"But your undressing technique needs work. You need to create suspense."

"Your suggestions are noted." Midorima's own common sense must be derailed for him to even acknowledge that comment. They weren't harlots, there is no need to be alluring in such a mundane thing like getting rid of layers no matter what Akashi claims. "I don't suppose you can do any better?" 

"Not today," Akashi clues in before amending his answer. "Though I hope to demonstrate in the distant future."

Midorima then registers how bending or stretching of any kind is not currently compatible with Akashi. He's already in his boxers, trousers kicked off before rolled into a ball following Midorima's own earlier example to the basket. The crisscross motion of his arms while taking off his shirt independently is likely to cramp those tender muscles. Akashi is asking for help without asking for help and Midorima scoffs.

When he carefully takes off Akashi's hoodie, anticipating a pained sound but getting none, he meets a far more open expression than he is used to and nearly stifles his own. Akashi only remarks, "You're learning."

Midorima is a quick study in a lot of things, but this, this vulnerability of having Akashi completely bare to him is a lesson in humility he will never outclass. The image lasts, burned into permanence in his memory. He leads Akashi into the adjacent cubicle once he slips out of his underwear, making a point to not look at him to preserve some form of modesty while turning on the ceiling mounted design. It drizzles at first before raining on them in jet streams. The temperature fogs the glass in steam.

There's no handicapped railing or indents in the tiles so Akashi braces himself against the wall with one hand. Midorima lathers and rinses in a few before attending to him who's only done his front. Here the bruises are vivid, looking sore. He wordlessly seizes the bar of soap from Akashi, resuming the job after spinning him.

He almost halts himself. He did not in fact have a good look at Akashi's backside before. He does now. It's an atlas of scars. Most of them are aged, silver linings of various length across what would have been unblemished skin. They take up the room between his shoulder blades, most concentrated there although some scatter to his lower spine, grazing his tailbone. The longest is a little over half of his hand span and Midorima knows how large his hands are.

He inhales and begins his ministrations, slow but thorough, mindful of the broken capillaries. "What did he use?"

Midorima's voice could be gravel that Akashi straight away knows what he is referring to. "A strap."

The buckle would catch and tear through flesh. Midorima bites back a curse and keeps washing, fortifying his mental faculties from shattering. He gets to Akashi's hair, using the mint shampoo he's partial to and near inaudibly tells him to close his eyes.

Akashi contemplates promising him that he won't break, but the truth of the matter was he already did. Instead he focuses on the scalp massage he's given. Midorima is exceedingly good with his hands. It is more than worth it though his legs are throbbing by the end of it.

The running water stops and Midorima hands him a towel for him to dry himself, bundling one over his head and shrugging out the wetness, disheveling his hair into something comical. It's nice being taken care of like this. Akashi has no point of reference but he knows what pure good feels like, probably more due to him having very little of it in his life.

He lifts his eyes from under the towel to meet Midorima's own. Akashi doesn't think anyone has ever looked at him like this. It's wanting, overwhelming fondness and something else a lot more fragile, a lot less worldly. Something sacred. Devotion. He is looking at him like he is a miracle. Is this what it feels to be found?

It weakens his equilibrium that Akashi turns away when Midorima lends him a pair of briefs and pajamas he's outgrown. They don't drown him but Akashi has no delusion he'll ever fit them right. Midorima changes then hangs up the towel from around his waist alongside the ones Akashi used.

He doesn't carry him to bed but Akashi could sense he's itching to. He doesn't stall them too long, only stopping at a particularly unique item on his worktable.

"Is this what I think it is?" Akashi fiddles with the pencil. "Cute."

Take care of Akashi, indulge whatever he desires to keep him with you. Let Akashi have his fun, he won't mock you. How naive of Midorima. "No, it's not what you think."

"It is." Midorima isn't fooling anyone, let alone Akashi if that knowing gleam as he appraised his handiwork was any indication. "The craftsmanship is very fine, Midorima. You can patent this. Only a religious faction might sue if you market godly powers. Have you ever considered whittling? Wood shop?"

"No and no." Midorima does not wrestle him into the bed, but he does engage in a staring contest with Akashi. He forfeits and slides under the covers with no objection. It is after all what he came here for. At least Akashi could give himself the credit of erasing those frown lines on Midorima. Teasing him until he is temporarily distracted from the problem always does the trick. "Get some rest."

"You won't stay?" Questions Akashi when he does not follow.

It is exactly what Midorima wants to do, which is why he is conflicted. Despite his earlier vexation at the pencil... Why hadn't he cleaned up after himself and instead left that in plain sight? He is all too aware of the distance crumbling between them. Before they had mountains to climb, before Akashi seems impossibly far. Now he's here and Midorima will do anything for him. Anything. Gone is his armor of intelligence and integrity. If Akashi kisses him, if Akashi asks for more, he will give him all of it times a thousand in return.

It's dangerous.

But Akashi is smiling, his eyes still fearless in the wake of everything. Midorima has no right to be afraid. He did not take Akashi with him to abandon him. That would be counterproductive. You don't look after someone and quit the moment they needed it most. That cements his courage.

Midorima buries himself in the comforter and lets Akashi snuggle. "You're warm."

"I am your furnace," deadpans Midorima though the arm around Akashi's middle goes a little tighter.

Akashi doesn't stop shivering as he clutches at his shirt and the recognition has Midorima almost jumping to his feet in search for more blankets. Except he thought to ask first, "Are you cold?"

Somewhere in his chest Akashi shakes his head. And then Midorima feels the stain forming where Akashi's face should be.

Oh.

Akashi isn't making a sound. Midorima doesn't have to wonder who taught him how to do that. He cards his hand through damp hair, softly kneading through the mass. He didn't miss how much Akashi liked it earlier.

"You're not alone," is what Midorima manages to say in the darkness. Of course it's easier to say to an empty room. "I won't leave you."

I won't leave you, I love you. Midorima swallows the rest.

Akashi hears it all the same and responds in kind, murmuring, "Never change, Midorima."

It's better somehow. It's a hoarse whisper that Midorima carries into the night, treasures for years to come.

 

 

* * *

 

 

"You can't help someone who doesn't want to be saved."

"Try me."

 

 

* * *

 

 

It's an hour later when Kaori finds them, practically cannon balling into the foot of the bed. She's not exactly heavy but she's bouncing in the glory of sparkly frills that amount up to a dress so law of momentum applies. It's definitely the kind of wake up call that won't do in an actual establishment but Midorima is obviously very much at home and not at a premiere hotel so he only groaned at the intrusion. It's a staple of having a younger sibling among other things.

"Shin-nii, look!" Kaori grapples onto the linens, placing something in between Midorima's thighs when he sits up. "I placed 3rd in the exams which means I get a slot in the winter showcase!"

Right. Kaori had just started the novice placement for her choice of instrument which happened to be the clarinet. Midorima remembered those years. They had colorful playbills instead of the formal digitalized setlists. The trophies, regularly a garish hue of gold in the shape of stars or an ornate treble clef, were a bit too gaudy for his tastes. He very much prefers the clear asymmetrical blocks of faux crystal incidental to the intermediate and upper echelons.

"That's great, Kaori. I look forward to seeing you perform," says Midorima, returning the small prize before he could accidentally crush it alongside the dreams of a precocious child. "For now I need you to be quiet though. We have a visitor."

Of course Kaori pays no mind to the compliment because it's automatic and she probably has been showered with a good number of them on the ride home by mother anyway. Midorima has her rapt attention when he gestures to the other occupant of the queen sized mattress. The tuft of red even burrowed in the sheets in the dim light is foolproof identification. Then again it isn't like Midorima has a habit of bringing back friends in the plural sense of the term.

"You got Akashi to come!" Well that's an improvement in the scale of volume but not one in pitch. Beggars can't be choosers. "Can he teach me how to do the pretty braids? Can we play mahjong? He likes mahjong, right?"

He likes mahjong, yes, but he adores shogi. Midorima doesn't bother to explain.

"If he feels good enough to," he replies. "You have to be considerate. He's not feeling well at the moment."

"Okay, I can wait," agrees Kaori. "But you have to tell me when he does feel better right away. Don't keep him to yourself or he'll get bored."

Brat. Midorima knows for a fact Akashi is in an ever present state of amusement whenever they're together so that's false. And it isn't like Midorima has the reins on withholding concession with Akashi's time or anything. "Sure. Now scram. You're getting glitter on my bed."

"It's rhinestone!" Kaori sticks out her tongue because apparently that's how kids get the last word. At least she's out the door.

Midorima pinches the bridge of his nose. He turns to his side to rouse Akashi by the shoulder. "Akashi, wake up." He doesn't even stir and Midorima almost wishes he hadn't bothered fussing over Kaori making noise earlier. He nudges him with a bit more force. "Hey, up you get. I need to get some food in you."

For a growing boy Akashi is something of a picky eater. It's not bad, but sometimes it's the most surprising things that set him off. Seaweed for instance or any of its deviation, which is bizarre. Midorima would probably order in wrong if he didn't at least confer to his palate.

His hand lands on a damp spot by the pillow, coming away sticky and Midorima sighs. He flips on the bedside lamp switch but no, that's not drool by the corner of Akashi's mouth. His stomach drops, goes out from under him.

"Shit!" His hands feel for a pulse, finding a rapid but thready one before cupping Akashi's face. He's cold and clammy with the barest rise and fall of his chest that indicates breathing. "Akashi! Akashi!"

The frantic calls of his name does penetrate through his consciousness combined with the inertia Midorima causes when he moves to cradle him. Akashi opens his eyes with unnatural sluggishness and his pupils won't align on him. They do after an abnormal amount of time, barely focusing. "Akashi, can you hear me?"

"Mi- Midori..." His name is an incomplete slur. It's all Akashi can manage apart from the bloodless grimace his face contorts into, even breathing seems like a herculean task to him.

"Where does it hurt?" Midorima asks, aiming to narrow the pain.

Everywhere, he wants to shout into the void. Instead his ability to communicate is cut to shreds, bludgeoned into nothing more than pained wheezing. Midorima makes the search, his touch weightless enough to be airborne but it sends razor edged staccatos throughout his nerve endings. The needle piercing stab Akashi feels when Midorima brushes against something by his ribs tears out a cry from his throat and it saps away the last of his strength. 

It's close enough to his heart that Midorima's already drained complexion goes white.

Akashi's eyes roll into the back of his head as he sinks into him once more and Midorima would rather a litany of jokes be made at his expense for the rest of his life rather than have him unresponsive again. It is what happens notwithstanding and his own heart rate spikes as numb fingers dial the series of digits.

The dispatcher picks up on the fourth ring. "119, what's your emergency?"

 

 

* * *

 

 

Midorima does not have Akashi's gift of eidetic memory. Nevertheless his own is an impressive one, just as exacting and veracious by normal standards that he is more than capable of recollecting past events with detailed authenticity.

He hates it now. Hates having ever envied Akashi for it. Hates it for the guileless bursts of the last hour, images that won't stop replaying themselves. He lets them in, lets them invade his senses to their brim because he's not allowed anywhere near Akashi when he's under the knife and will probably remain so for a while.

He'd left Kaori by herself as soon as the line connected to their mother who's apparently on her way back from the grocery store anyway, only a block off. He spots the taillights of her chevrolet by the driveway when the ambulance bends around the corner.

The ride was horrible, the technicians weren't nearly as panicked as they should be or they were just doing their jobs properly while Midorima clambers from slipping into hysterics when Akashi's BP falls shy of 50, a hair's breadth from going into shock.

There isn't any point to, he reminded himself especially when there isn't anything he could do. In the truck Akashi had been outfitted into a crash cart before wheeled away into the ER as soon as they entered the premises. It's touch and go. There's Sanada at the helm and while Midorima has heard a great deal about the man from his father, infallible spearhead of their trauma unit and rival turned close ally, he still finds it difficult to let go.

He does let go. He has to. There's no resistance in Akashi's limp hand when it leaves the confines of his own and meets air. The personnel vacate the halls into the operation wing. The territory is sterile and prying eyes were often dissuaded regardless of clearance, off limits save for actual business such as a double surgery. His father doesn't even have that luck and he's still on peak hours.

Midorima is ushered into the waiting lounge by a sympathetic nurse. He doesn't really do anything apart from answering his mother's texts and dodging a string of Kise's irrelevant ones before muting his phone and vegetating. Vegetate is Akashi's word for it at least whenever he decides to hide and lie motionless somewhere when he feels raw. It doesn't fit Midorima and it likely never will. He may be sitting still if on the stiff side but his mind is listless as ever. And he'll need to iron his slacks again with the way his fists are folding into them.

His thoughts do cease to overrun him when he's joined by another presence. His father is standing not three feet away, not even one now. "Your shift hasn't ended, how are you here?"

"I came as soon as I heard," he explains. "And it has."

At that Midorima finds the time behind the reception desk. It's been more than a few hours. "Oh."

He takes in his father's appearance, no longer in his practitioner's coat but still wearing his badge above the suit jacket. It doesn't matter, everyone in the entire hospital complex knew and respected him even if he went around in scrubs. A paper bag is placed on his lap. "You haven't had dinner. I brought onigiri from the cafeteria."

Although he appreciates the courtesy he isn't in the mood to eat. His father seems to have read him, taking a seat next to him by the cushions. "You can have them later if you're hungry."

"I won't be." He's too guilty to be. 

"It's not your fault, Shintarou." The hand on his knee stops the trembling he thought he's long past and apparently isn't. "You got him here in time. He's going to make it."

Barely. He'd left that up to chance. He never left anything up to chance. He shouldn't have. "I watched him pass out. He's never passed out in all the time I knew him. There was blood in his urine this afternoon. I should have brought him here the second he agreed to leave the gym. He never knew his own strength. Then I saw the bruises, saw everything. I saw the signs and outright ignored them. To have overlooked them all, I might as well have left him to die."

His eldest made astute observations and if it were him he would be just as harsh on himself. But the boy isn't a doctor, not yet, is years, decades short of an adult and even then no one could have predicted the future. It simply isn't his weight to carry. He has half a mind to recourse a different plot for his son's future if it meant freeing him from that burden, never mind his pride should he ever run his own practice. "You couldn't have known. No one could."

Akashi would.

"No, he wouldn't." Midorima must've said that out loud. It earns a patient but stern look from his parent. "I don't care if he's a genius or somehow prophetic, which is ridiculous nonsense. He's a teenager and you are one too. Shintarou, even the best professionals make mistakes. I don't like what I'm hearing. You can't blame yourself like this. You trusted the word of your friend. He likely didn't know better either or genuinely thought the problem was going to resolve itself."

They can argue semantics all night but it still won't change the fact that Akashi had been unconscious and hemorrhaging. To think if his sister hadn't cut their nap short, Midorima didn't want to know where they would be now.

"Shintarou, he wouldn't want you to feel this way." That gets to him. Akashi's wishes always get to him. His father has seemingly figured the formula and continues to administer it. "Friends wouldn't want each other to suffer."

But this isn't suffering. This is nothing. Nothing compared to what Akashi has gone through. Midorima remembers every mark on his body and the ones that aren't. Midorima remembers just earlier he held him silently crying.

"I just-" If his voice breaks, his father kindly does not mention it. "I just want to help him. I need to help him."

The smile directed his way is conservative but no less impassioned. "You already have, Shintarou."

What a lie to believe.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It's not as bad as he thought it would be. The bleeding was profuse, yes, but timely intervention, which his father enjoys reminding him was his doing, staved the threat of sepsis or the need of an induced coma. There weren't any insurmountable complications in the surgery, meaning there were complications but Sanada had been particularly tight lipped after his father shot the man an advisory glare which translated to abort mission and Akashi isn't even a terrible patient given his ability to appreciate the bland, poorly seasoned tofu.

"It seems I am now spleenless," Akashi says by way of greeting. Though he still looks worse for wear and rather wan from blood loss he is considerably more alert, more or less aware of his surroundings if his ability to jest has made its comeback. "Is this Tokyo National?"

Midorima nods.

Akashi looks thoughtful. "I thought I recognized the room. It's been ages."

Now Midorima cannot follow. "I didn't think you'd ever go to a physical."

For obvious reasons. Masaomi did favor the discretion of personal physicians who would wait hand and foot on him and were prone to bribery.

Akashi clasped his hands together, looking more like someone about to conduct a conference than restricted to a hospital bed for the upcoming two days. "My mother passed away here at the end of her treatment. She said she didn't want to do it at home. Didn't want to make a memory of it where we lived."

Midorima's hands clench into fists because Akashi nearly made that full circle last night. "You can't keep doing this."

Akashi graciously does not pretend to not know what he’s talking about. He has a neat row of stitches and a system still influenced by anesthetic. "I am indebted to you. Stressful seems like an understatement for what you went through for me. I won't make the mistake of putting you in that position again."

That, that's not what Midorima wants. That's not even half of it. "I don't want your debt. I want you to make things right."

Akashi's smile is resigned. "You know I can't do that."

"I don't actually," says Midorima, no longer wanting to spare them from this no matter the fallout. He doesn't care for it, he cannot, not when Akashi nearly died. Frail is not a word he would associate with Akashi. But ashen and dripping scarlet by the mouth, his eyes fluttering closed Midorima cannot bear to see it again. If Akashi has no plans to rectify that then he will. "He is killing you and you are letting him."

His false laughter is frayed. "If that were the objective I'd be at an autopsy, not here."

"You don't get to do that!" The exclamation startles Midorima himself. "You don't get to make light of this. You terrify me."

"I'm going to guess you don't want my apology either," Akashi concludes, worn to the bone. "I know what you want from me, Midorima. But I'm only human. I can't work a miracle."

"I'm not asking for a miracle. And I am telling you to be human." The desperation is a predator, consuming him in an entourage of please, please, please listen. "No person alive should let this be. I don't care if you've seen him in his honeymoon period, I don't care if you've idolized him, I don't care if your mother told you to take care of him."

"She didn't," assured Akashi.

Midorima tells him, "You're falling apart faster than I can pick up the pieces."

"It's not your job to fix me." Akashi reminded, "If you were ever under the illusion it was, then you're wrong. It isn't."

"Why play by his rules? Why keep his secrets?" Midorima demands. "Why do that when you know his words are worth nothing? Does he tell you that it will make you good enough? Does he tell you that it will make your mother proud? Does he tell you that if you break free you'll bring her shame?"

From the look in Akashi's face Midorima knows he's on to something. He follows through a step closer, all of it bold, none of it untrue. "He's lying, Akashi. He is a liar and a coward. He is heartless. He will never be satisfied. No matter what you do, no matter who you become. He will never love you."

Akashi warns him, gaze flickering, "Stop."

He says, "You're already perfect."

"Midorima, stop it."

He doesn't, not even when Akashi's eyes water dangerously. "You're perfect and he can't see it. He won't. No matter if the rest of the world does."

Akashi is tired. He is so tired. "You can't tear that promise out of me, Midorima. No one can."

Midorima begs, "Don't. Don't do this to me. I can't come to class one day wondering why you're not there and then finding you like this or worse."

Then you won't find me, Akashi thinks. He can go back to private tutors for the remainder of middle school. There's Rakuzan in Kyoto if he lasts longer. By the time anything irreparable is done, he'll be gone.

Midorima can hear him thinking if that scowl was anything to go by. "You will not lay down your life for him. I won't let you."

"It's a hit and run as far as the documents go, Midorima." Of course Akashi already has an alibi ready, a story to spin if the papers ever caught a whiff of it. "I just need to be more careful. Stop being a fool."

"You were never a fool," corrected Midorima. "You're only one when it comes to this."

"Next time I won't anger him." Because Akashi knows there is no end to disappointing him, it is carved into him. But he will vow to never purposely inspire violence. This episode, this had been due to Akashi letting himself roam wild, testing his liberties. "You have my word it won't come to blows." When Midorima all but sneers at the empty reassurance Akashi ceases the platitudes and gives him the truth. "This is not up for negotiation, Midorima. This discussion is over."

No. There won't be a next time. He will not condone even the possibility of next time. Knowledge is insurance. Midorima has it in volumes, has more than necessary for what needs to be done. This will end their friendship. Akashi may never forgive him, may never speak to him again. In fact he's counting on it.

"You forgot one thing." Midorima smiles bitterly. "I know."

"I know you do." The remark stunts Midorima's conviction. While Akashi is prepared for this eventuality, the contingency is weak for he knows Midorima may be able to circumvent through it. He hopes to high heavens he won't. "Think of your father. Think of him."

"Are you threatening him?" Finally there is betrayal in Midorima's eyes.

"My name is," Akashi says. "What you have is a storm in your hands. Or a dilemma."

Midorima insists, "Your father isn't a god."

"But he does own nearly a third of the city's central business district. And he's been such a charitable partner of Japan's medical circuit. Tokyo National is but one of his many investments." Midorima will never mistake Masaomi for a humanitarian. You actually need to value human life to become one. He suspects he's being played. However if he isn't able to tell whether or not Akashi is bluffing, he will with what he divulges next. "Your radiology wing... He built that for my mother. Or rather his money did." You can't lie about that. There's no nostalgia, only regret. "Most believe he kept his pockets open to the cause in memory of her. It does have a nice little added side benefit. Keeps the right people quiet."

Granted some hadn't even required the compensation to remain complicit. He recalls Chairman Fei looking on in morbid fascination as Masaomi pointedly dispelled the rancid embers of his cigar by blunting them on his sheet music when he couldn't tidy the parlor fast enough. It is much easier to remember being told by his father to chaperone the man to the powder room only to find the trustee aiming to trade favors. He didn't even broach the matter subtly.

Akashi had bolted as soon as he felt the hand riding low enough to touch his waistband. Fei had eyed him in consideration then, swearing armistice as long as Akashi himself would never speak of the encounter again. Masaomi awaited them with tea. For a split second Akashi wants to tell. Because surely even his father would not let him be caught unawares with a man of that sort, one who funded the pediatric ward no less. Then his father praises him for the deed and Akashi comes to the conclusion if he told on their esteemed guest, he would have been the one blamed for the occurrence of such blasphemy if he were to be believed or the man simply would not have cared. To this date Akashi cannot decide which is worse.

"That makes them the wrong people if they're willing to stay quiet. The kind who were never meant to be here. They don't have the right." Midorima can gather Akashi has met one too many of them over the years and lost faith. "There are others here. Good people. Believe me. There is my father. There is Sanada and Hatori and Ryu Mei." It wouldn't hurt to list off a few examples. "We all hope to work in medical to save lives, to better them. It would be the greatest dishonor to renounce that and take part in such felony or merely stand aside to witness living proof which is no better. It is an abuse of power. If those people exist here, tell me."

Akashi pauses, no rush in contrary to Midorima, regards him with condolence as if this were his plight instead. Then he gives him the names. It almost sends Midorima into a tailspin. This was infiltration of the highest order. These were people his father regularly collaborated with, people he depended on, people he took commands from, people he trusted. Coworkers, recruiters, directors. His entire life's work had been built on their endorsement, their support. These people were supposedly the so called pillars of their community and they were bought off.

Midorima cannot live with the fact. No one should be untouchable. Yet such an endeavor proved possible for Akashi Masaomi, having these corrupt individuals in line with his every whim.

"I don't doubt your father is a good man." Akashi respects Midorima Tadashi. He is a steadfast presence in his children's lives, a bottomless source of logical compassion. "Therefore I don't doubt he raised you well. Raised you to fathom the meaning of sacrifice. You never did ask what happens to those who speak up."

Now Midorima knows what's at stake. He can wholly imagine the ramifications. His father's entire career for the unguaranteed chance of saving Akashi. If he were to expose Masaomi, there is nothing other than the definite outcome of his father acting according to his moral compass and being relieved of his position, blacklisted perhaps depending on how much of an obstacle he presents. He will find another place somewhere, too remarkable to be eliminated for good. Teach at the university maybe, educate another generation of doctors. He will miss his old work, the significance of it. He will not resent Midorima for the change, claiming it to be his choice. He will neglect to mention it is a choice only brought by the importance of Akashi to Midorima.

Everything seems to have dawned on Midorima. Still Akashi knows better to be safe than sorry. "You may be fine without my forgiveness. But I am certain you cannot live with knowing you need to earn his. You are a son before anything else, as you should be. Do not throw that away for me." As if Midorima needed the reminder Akashi swears, "You tell and your father will never touch a scalpel again."

Wretched anger melts into near irrepressible distraught. "No. No, there has to be another way." This is what Akashi has done. Midorima was the one person who had looked at him, knowing all of his secrets and loved him for it. Now he is inconsolable because of him, his words choked. "I won't do nothing."

I don't deserve you. Let me go, Akashi pleads. And delivers the final nail on the coffin, breathing in glass. "There is nothing you can do."

He doesn't stop Midorima when he storms out of the room.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It's dusk by the time Midorima comes back. Akashi is bleary eyed from dozing off given the lack of permitted activity, but barring the unconsciousness he's generally a light sleeper that it's easy to orient himself to the outline of his shadows in the vicinity of the doorway. "Still mad at me?"

For a moment Akashi fears his return would be short lived but then Midorima scoots into the side of the stretcher free of the IV, curling inwards and taking very little space despite his height. "What do you think?" 

"Fair enough." Akashi had lowered the metal bars of the gurney for precisely this reason, smiling at the warmth of another body beside him.

It's quiet save for the sound of their breathing. Then Midorima speaks. "I think you're an idiot and that is unlikely to change. It doesn't mean I'm still mad at you."

There is no volatile edge to his voice. It's also highly improbable that Midorima is no longer upset. He receives confirmation when Midorima turns over to face him and does nothing more. Akashi is the one to bridge the gap between them. He pulls, the inches disappearing with the tug of Midorima's arm behind him, his own nestling by the back of his shoulder.

Midorima lies rigid in the embrace for the first few minutes and then he caves.

Akashi feels him burying himself into the crook of his neck, mutters calming noises. His mother used to hold him like this. He had been so young, hidden in the alcove of her arms when he'd been unable to understand her perpetual sickness, why it took away parts of her until she was no more. Why days of her retching and pale as snow were all for naught. Why the light from the machines did nothing. Why none of it made any difference, curbing illnesses which doesn't stop its progress.

Sometimes there isn't a cure for everything.

In a way it's the same for him.

Midorima's tears are slow, incongruous to any pattern and worlds away from the obnoxious weeping of a child Akashi imagines were once his own. It's gutting Midorima with every inhale, Akashi could tell. With statuesque stillness he buoys the flood, clearly unfamiliar with its weight. "It's okay. Let it out."

Midorima thinks the worst part isn't mourning someone who is gone. It's having to let them fade, powerless to save them. Akashi knows the feeling all too well.

"It's alright, Midorima," he says. "You've already saved me."

In those achingly bright eyes he realizes Midorima understands that terrible love after all.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Midorima adjusts. Shuutoku is the pinnacle of Japanese education if their cultural studies were anything to go by. The sciences were nothing to frown at either and their consistent placing in tournaments are among the reasons he accepted their offer.

At first Coach Nakatani had been perplexed and his fellow club hopefuls grudging. Midorima's reputation preceded him, as did the rest of his former teammates. The Generation of Miracles were an unstoppable force. Poaching even one of its members increased their chances of winning games exponentially.

There's a scrimmage in the final stage of tryouts. Midorima passes the ball no more than necessary and sinks his high projectile threes flawlessly one after another. Skeptical stares morph into awe. Then to no one's surprise Midorima is handed a starting jersey, joining their ranks immediately.

They make do with him, their ace player. Nakatani mandates his three selfish requests as long as he behaves himself. It's quid pro quo. His lucky items and taped fingers gain little more than the attentions of a measly rebuttal from the occasional hotheaded or the more well meaning if sometimes clueless teasing from the likes of his seniors.

Basketball is the same if a little lonelier, but that doesn't last either because Takao comes along.

Takao is like a growth of mold, impossible to scrape off. But then again Midorima isn't trying very hard. Besides Takao isn't a pushover. He wouldn't have done anything he didn't truly want to. The rickshaw and having him run errands across town is just payback for the ludicrous antics Midorima has to deal with and is often roped into on a daily basis. The former also happened to be rather beneficial for his calves. Takao has the sense of humor of a child but as far as company goes, he wasn't half bad. He does have some sensibility if sparsely used, willing to eat their bentos in the rooftop yard in relative quiet apart from the occasional small talk.

It isn't particularly difficult for the point guard to endear himself to him. Having thought Midorima a foe to beat then having to be in the same team as him, only to decide it was in his best interest to work with Midorima, to aim for his acknowledgement of all things.

And Midorima does acknowledge him. They are stronger together.

When it comes to basketball Takao did not have a lazy bone in his body, even if he had the attention span of a toddler when less favored subjects are concerned. If anything there were days he practiced hard enough for nausea to take its toll. For the briefest of seconds Midorima allows himself to reminisce. Akashi had done that too during their first semester in Teikou, if privately by the outdoor tap. After his body grew accustomed to the pressure, only his hands blistered, calluses mirroring Midorima's own.

Better yet Takao's unique field of vision enhanced their plays. Midorima knows it will prove especially useful against a certain phantom player.

There seems to be a running theme here. He seems to be taken with hard working point guards with an eye for perception. It's heartfelt respect, mutual affection and the slightest of infatuation that he allows himself to feel for Takao. It's nothing like the heart palpitating, paralyzing free fall whenever Akashi strays close enough to touch.

Absolutely nothing, he realizes when Takao plants one on his mouth. He admits he's a little blindsided but not quite so. They've been dancing around each another and there had been no shortage of rumors in the first string where Takao's affections lie. Midorima is not one to take part in confirming their liaison with atypically public trysts, but he does have ears. He neither evades nor leads on Takao's advances.

When Takao does instigate the turning point apropos of nothing, it's still much sooner than Midorima anticipated. For one the night while pleasant had been uneventful and he thought Takao would have wanted to make a big production out of it. There were no sprinklers set off, no flinging his arms around him like a hapless suitor, no wandering hands as they scramble to get by the front door of Takao's house. Instead it's a soft peck on the lips beneath the glow of the porch, rather chaste by the lack of tongue involved. It's sweet and horribly disarming.

He had been as receptive as a mannequin and Takao takes it for what it's worth. He's had an inkling about this and yet there were still pieces missing to the puzzle. "We aren't going to work out are we, Shin-chan?"

"I'm sorry." Midorima's expression shutters. He thought he could move forward, forge something new. Someone as wonderfully eager and accommodating as Takao would have been a ringing endorsement for most hoping for a stable relationship. There is nothing to salvage with Akashi, he knows. While the yearning eclipsed him long ago and practically haunted him some days, only a lunatic would believe in the farce. But there's so much of him he unveiled and surrendered to Akashi, and all too willingly, that to replicate those parts just to create facsimile of what once was felt unthinkable. "You're good to me, Takao. Too good. I wouldn't trade our friendship for anything. But I can't cherish you the way you deserve to be, the way you want. I'm truly sorry."

After a breather of thinking it through, Takao responds, "You know... The purpose of rejecting a confession is to make them stop falling for you. I think you're doing it wrong, Shin-chan."

The grin is more subdued than Takao's usual, but it's still mischievous and warm that it abates the guilt in Midorima. "I wouldn't know. I'm afraid I'm unfamiliar with the experience."

Takao gasps, scandalized. His own rejection didn't matter at this point. "Are you saying this is your first time being confessed to?"

Yes. Takao is no stranger to the experience if the amount of pineapples aimed for his head were something to go by, as most outgoing young men who present themselves in fairly gentlemanly conduct would be. But he also isn't dense to deny that Midorima's positive attributes have a way of escaping most people, being with what lost in the overwhelmingly studious and superstitious front, he just so happens to be biased that he forgot that automatically meant a bad date to the average eye.

Midorima has no objection to the widely accepted assumption and no intention of changing his disposition. Reproachful or not, he cares little for distractions, let alone the torrid if short lived romance he gathered his peers hunger for. He's neither Kise, who juggles about a hundred new admirers one tasteless photo spread at a time or Aomine who could sleep the better part of two years away and still somehow scrape by with no shortage of fans.

And he definitely isn't Akashi, cordial enough to attract people, but just reticent enough to keep them at arm's length, stringing along a chain of admirers even with the most minimal of exchanges. That's before the notoriety of the Generation of Miracles kicked in and they had the entire basketball population at their feet. There was never a need of a confession between them either. They only coalesced into unspoken intimacy. There really isn't any way to describe what he never saw coming. Or going.

Midorima nods and Takao smiles at the effort he's making. "You let them down easy, that's the tip." A pause, a curious light to those eyes. "I had a feeling about you, Shin-chan. Thought we could be great. Or greater. Partners on and off the court sounds like a dream. But in another life I guess."

"Are we alright?" Midorima asks.

Takao eyes him with unmistakable fondness. Honesty has a way of chipping off even the toughest exteriors. For someone most would consider gargantuan, Shin-chan could be downright adorable. "Always."

He readies himself to leave as Takao retrieves mail by the doormat and inserts his keys into the lock, only to find his name called out as he descended the last of the pavilion's steps. "Hey Shin-chan! Wanna come in?"

Midorima knows Takao had always been exceedingly kind, a better man than a good lot despite the tomfoolery. "I stocked up on sake in preparation for being turned down and I'd feel greedy if I didn't share."

It goes without saying that Midorima also knows Takao is deceptively clever when he wants to be. "Downplay it all you want, Shin-chan. I don't think I'm the only one with a broken heart tonight."

Midorima makes room for one more surprise when he agrees to the offer of a drinking buddy.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Midorima has been hosted in this very sitting room countless times, his knee knocking into the low coffee table to wake Takao who probably has highlighter smudged on his cheek. Serves him right for falling asleep studying. This is different because the ranch style terracota home is cloaked in the wash of moonlight, completely empty and he is rather inebriated. The former gives way to the idea while Takao hadn't wanted anything extravagant, he'd also taken the precautions to succeed. This would have been romantic under different circumstances, sitting by the plush throw rug over the tatami, drunken whispers of sweet nothings that could escalate into something sacrilege should fate favor Scorpio today. It didn't. But perhaps both of them may be better off for it.

The alcohol isn't like the fine white wine or antique gin he had a glass or two at the dinner parties his father sometimes encourages him to tag along to enrich his connections or the distilled champagne Akashi prudently sipped at his own receptions, having dictated rum only had a place behind closed doors if he didn't want to be branded with a drinking problem. It still does its job, sitting in a pool of heat in his stomach, peeling away the remnants of insecurity.

"So..." Takao whistles after a mouthful of tequila spiked sake, because you only live once and Shin-chan needs to loosen up, therefore being the bigger fool is a must, getting hammered simply due process. "Who has captured the heart of the elusive Midorima Shintarou?"

His reply had been a telltale scoff of, "Why must you phrase it like I'm a swooning Victorian maiden?"

Takao clapped his knees. "No, for real though Shin-chan. The suspense is killing me. Tell me so I don't get any dumb ideas at least, like stalking or trying to measure up to this dude. You wouldn't want me to risk a restraining order now, would you?"

It's joking, and like all of Takao's curiosity it would soon dwindle. But Midorima supposed he owed him some variant of an explanation especially given his hospitality. He doesn't quite feel like coming back yet because his father is on a graveyard shift and his mother had taken Kaori to Yokohama to see their grandparents. This would do to pass time and maybe sort out his bearings a bit. When you ignore the teasing, Takao was a decent listener.

Midorima processes and then almost gives himself a whiplash. "What- what makes you think it's a man?"

Takao cackled. And cackled some more, wiping stray tears. "You're kidding me, right? My radar picked up on you eons ago. I wouldn't have kissed you with the threat of a broken nose, you know? Don't worry. You're not projecting. Unlike Kise who's a pretty done deal from the get-go, not that there's anything wrong with that. Man, even my sister would like to know where he got that mascara. You're lucky you don't need any, Shin-chan. Satomi's jealous."

"Takao..." Was the low grumble that equated to stay on point. A fraction of him settled, at the very least he's moderately reassured he isn't a glaring advertisement. "Focus."

"Okay, okay!" He rescinds the tangent. "You remember camp?"

That's rhetorical, who doesn't remember camp? The grueling sessions were one thing but he recalled never knowing a greater abomination than the technicolor mobile game the first years were afflicted by bordering on addiction. All it involved was assaulting the avian species with a stone catapult. A proper self respecting young man would not waste neurons on that drivel. One would know board games were the height of sophistication. They were also comparably silent. He'd been incensed upon finding Takao could sleep through a category five hurricane whilst he debated on smothering himself with a pillow to muffle the noise, if barely.

Midorima lies back and wills away the acute reaction of somatic ringing of said sound effects. "What about it?"

"Remember how the first years thought it was a great idea to pack along their spank bank and coach all but confiscated all of them after the inspection?"

And dumped them in the unused storage room of the apartment the starters were sharing, is left unsaid but commonly understood as Miyagi made the untimely discovery after searching for spare futons.

"Well you're kind of, what's the word I'm looking for here?" Then it's as if a light bulb had went off in Takao's head. "Desensitized. Yeah. Adjective, not verb like how you want to do that to Kise."

"You'd rather I behave like I witnessed a fiend?" Questions Midorima. He's actually a little proud of himself. The trial and error of finding Aomine's gravure collection in public areas worked like Pavlovian conditioning. His initial squeamish reaction eventually blunted the way a lovingly used practice katana would. Today he'd barely blink twice at pages filled with scantily clad women.

"Come on. Even Kimura had a hard time keeping a straight face. Miyagi looked as red as a tomato. And I'm pretty sure Otsubo only went to the bathroom to alleviate his problem."

Midorima could feel the beginnings of second hand embarrassment showing on his face that he resorted to shooting Takao a look for having been that privy to their upperclassmen. "And just why were you aware of this? Or how for that matter?"

Takao didn't even look sheepish, only grinning like the cat that ate the canary. "What good is a hawk eye if I only use it for sports? Besides the whole 24/7 situational awareness kind of panders to your vastly superior self control, being limp as a noodle and all."

He is not going to dignify that with a response, having failed completely in appreciating the analogy, shaking his head into the kotatsu. Takao pays no mind to it, instead iterating low, something like pleasure in the timbre of his voice. "But then came the next afternoon. The enlightening man-to-man defense drills where yours truly had the honor of being guarded by my favorite tsun-tsun." Mirth is shining in those silver eyes at what apparent revelation Takao is reminiscing. "And boy, there is nothing little about little Shin-chan."

Midorima spits out the sake. Takao rubs his back sympathetically despite the obliterating glare he earns while coughing as the liquid went down the wrong pipe. "There, there."

After a moment of deliberation and having regained his composure somewhat Midorima snorts. "You're incorrigible. It's a natural biological response especially in contact sports. Don't tell me you've never done the same."

"What? Tented my pants on the court? Of course I have, Shin-chan. I wouldn't be a healthy teen male without a boner or two." Takao eyed him evenly then. "I think you're missing the point. You're literally only aggressive when it comes to playing ball, right? At first I thought that's gotta be it. Actual basketball nutcase. But you and I both know it's more than that. Admit it."

"So what if I find you attractive?" Midorima forgoes debating what the statement will do to Takao's already inflated ego for it's harmless and furthermore necessary to prove a point. "I'm afraid your personality alone wouldn't land you the nickname high spec kareshi."

"Miyagi really made a fuss about that poll, didn't he?" Takao nodded along to fond memories, the insult somehow repelled as if his self esteem had the properties of rubber. Besides as soon as he heard _I find you attractive_ everything kind of systematically made its way out of his left ear. "Ne, Shin-chan. If you're okay about this stuff and open, or as open as you can be anyway..." Takao's never met Midorima's father except for that one instance he'd been picked up since they were about to drop off his mother at the Narita Airport, but for a guy who dissected brains for a living, the guy was chill, with a better sense of humor than his son at least which in his book is worth a line of gold stars. He had a feeling Shin-chan would be accepted no matter his sexuality, which brings him to his question of, "Then what's stopping you from being in a relationship with your dreamboat? He exists, I take it. Because you don't just moon after b-ball."

"It's complicated." Midorima doesn't know what's stopping him from revealing Akashi's identity. A form of leftover loyalty perhaps and dare he say it, protectiveness. Better disguise himself under the illusion of unrequited love than the train wreck that amounted to the closest thing I had to an ex had a personality break so we aren't even talking unless you count online shogi without a chatroom communication. Midorima always lost anyway and Akashi splitting his time between Rakuzan and the family business didn't really allow for more than a game every two to three weeks or so. The last month had been completely devoid of being annihilated over a computer screen which in truth had done wonders for him, at least before the day the Kyoto issue of Basketball Monthly arrived on Shuutoku's doorstep.

Granted his upperclassmen aren't the type to begrudge the miracles the way some from their year and his own would, frankly Midorima isn't as sheltered to be unaware of the fact that he knows his own face might be someone's idea of a dart board throughout the murkier recesses of the basketball circuit.

"Fucking hell," muttered Miyagi. "I mean I expected it, but I guess this kid really is a monster if he's landing no. 4 his first year."

Otsubo had inspected the article from over his shoulder. "He's stacking the deck in his favor too. That's three Uncrowned Kings you're looking at in his starter."

Yes, he didn't fail to notice that the moment Akashi had reaped an oath out of their group he would see to his own probability of coming out on top to be astronomically higher than the ordinary miracle.

Midorima understood their objections to a freshman making captain. But Akashi has always been different. You would only understand once you've been part of his team, under his care and leadership. At least before Akashi's cutthroat persona decided to anthropomorphize, he made Teikou's ever victorious motto bearable. In an environment where trust was anathema, Midorima had been touched to find out he always had him in his corner. He is no stranger to derision for his eccentricities that manifested in an often hand held item among other quirks, but one look from Akashi had all but silenced every attempt at ridicule. If only Midorima had been able to return the favor of defending him against his greater demons.

He hopes to feign disinterest as he observes the laminated spread from his own vantage point when his elders beckoned Takao and him behind them as they sat on the bench. It's something of an impossible task with the game footage they were able to procure not having been very forthcoming when it came to the point guard. Obsessive study became pointless when the material is at tenth capacity.

If Midorima has grown his shooting range to that of a full court, it's not a stretch to extrapolate the others' upgrades. Still Akashi is the type to play things close to the vest. He rarely acts as a starter despite his famed status and when he does walk into the third or last quarter, he isn't even in half his gear. It would have been infuriating if Midorima weren't preoccupied by other things.

In photograph the other four may be donning poster boy expressions of gratuitous confidence, but Akashi's no-nonsense own only evoked lethal intensity. His eyes hold the promise of quiet calamity. The jacket hangs off of proud shoulders, arms crossed over his chest.

A stranger is inhabiting his body.

While Midorima never doubted his ability, he wondered if the new Akashi made friends at school or if he had been too absorbed in the weight of his duties to truly connect with anyone or if that personality was detrimental to anything that didn't involve winning. He wondered if Akashi was lonely.

It's silly to think that of someone so infallible, of someone who when the pain proved to be too great a burden to carry he divorced it entirely from himself and erased any trace of softness in his being.

He wondered if Akashi knew he was ill. Wondered if Akashi deep down realized it and let himself be as detached from his true self if it didn't cost him the price he had to pay. Because Akashi's arms, visible from the cape the jacket made, are clear. And for once, the wind blowing through the hem of his jersey bares milky skin.

It's horrifying to know that this, this is what will get the bruises to stop. Akashi has somehow molded into an inhuman version of himself where his father does not hurt him, doesn't feel the need to be ruthless for he is already a mirror image of it. Akashi's one path to salvation had become his destruction. To save him from himself, Midorima quantified the risks.

It's worth it. It's always worth it.

It's still an undertaking of increasingly elaborate proportions, one he may not be cut out for.

He will try anyway.

"It's complicated," is the only thing Midorima is able to repeat in the present.

Takao toasts a newly opened can of German brew, because they're diversifying, and Midorima raises his own glass. "To fixer uppers and all the possibilities of change."

It's a strange boast to drink to, but it's oddly comforting. The hangover tomorrow not so much. "To sweeping the Interhigh."

Batting him with a halfhearted cuff to his midsection Takao mock chided, "Don't jinx us, Shin-chan."

 

 

* * *

 

 

Then a novice no name team with Teikou's phantom sixth man and an American returnee kicks them out of the Interhigh preliminaries and pushes Midorima into experiencing a paradigm shift.

While he may have turned something of a blind eye to the proceedings he knew their last year of Teikou lived in infamy for good reason. Akashi had allowed, no, encouraged them to take the game to such degenerate lengths.

In the face of unequal odds Midorima always thought it was best to play with your head held high and fall in the code of sportsmanship. Basketball may have been a fraternity made of testosterone and trash talking, but they had to draw the line somewhere. In the monotony of Aomine's resolve alongside Kise's eagerness and Murasakibara's boredom, Akashi had cultivated the worst kind of punishment for their opponents. Not merely defeat, but debilitating, crushing loss. He knew the final championships league had done the job and broke something in Kuroko that to this date is still a long way from healing.

And yet despite being torn into fragments himself, left in what was essentially tatters, of his own volition as resilient as he is stoic Kuroko Tetsuya became a guiding beacon to most if not all who had their hopes dashed into the ground by the five of them. Led a revival.

The brighter the light, the darker the shadow.

Only recently Midorima began to wonder if it isn't true. If perhaps the small soft spoken boy with a force of will so incandescent it was blinding to behold had been their light all along.

Seirin's rematch with Touou is the moment of truth. In the summer the ace of aces had defeated them abysmally, not that Midorima had expected a different outcome. The Winter Cup is the war for change.  

However currently watching the passing specialist's signature technique, a weapon developed for this express purpose being thoroughly thwarted feels akin to watching a newborn kitten being drowned in the rain. Midorima realizes while part of him would always remain a skeptic deep down he doesn't want them to lose. If the sentiment is newfangled, it's not any less genuine.

Of course Kuroko gets back up because he doesn't know how to stay down.

He serves his former partner a taste of his own medicine, exploiting the relationship they once had to the fullest. It still isn't enough, not when Aomine shows his true colors. Midorima does possess some theoretical grasp on the concept of zone, however it's nothing compared to seeing it firsthand even from the stands. The way Aomine is playing he seems closer to a god than he is human. It's brutal and if this kept up, it meant the end for them.

Unbeknownst to all present even his own shadow Kagami, jumper extraordinaire, rose to the occasion, tapping into his own unknown reserve of potential. The tides are turning. Witnessing two aces in the zone immersed in unadulterated instinct, it's electric. And Aomine, Aomine is smiling. It's broad and real and Midorima finally understands this is all Kuroko wanted. 

It isn't only about knocking them off their pedestals, it isn't that simple. A single loss wouldn't affect a normal person's psyche to that extent.

Having become paragons of power they have all grown jaded and isolated, some too lazy to even pick up the slack, hone their skills, and more importantly with none of them able to place their faith in anything other than their own hands. All simply because they can afford to. It's beyond selfishness, beyond arrogance, it's the kind of downfall that will slowly but soundly destroy their love for the game. Akashi is past that point, with the game all but treated as if it were the conquest of some distant feudal lord. Whereas Aomine had made it abundantly clear the evening Akashi splintered into someone else, with the ultimate scorer having transformed into a parody of himself. Grandiose delusions, the only one who can beat me is me aside, Aomine is untouchable. And while Midorima isn't guilty of the worst of it, he is guilty nonetheless.

Wake up, was all Kuroko is asking for. It's loud, practically deafening when he strikes the ball skywards, flying. The crowd is thunderous for the final point. The moment stretches as Kagami leaps, slams it into the net with a destructive roar.

Aomine wakes up.

 

 

* * *

 

 

When push comes to shove Midorima does not care about emperors or kings or whatever nonsense the spectators are spouting. Meeting heterochromatic eyes, discordant and manic stirs something like righteous fury because ideally this could all have been avoided. Akashi should have came to him, told him the truth instead of telling him sometimes I feel a little off kilter from the stress because that took no small amount of deceit and had been nowhere near enough to warn him he had a megalomaniac waiting to burst to the surface and replace him entirely. The scissors incident is enough to shave ten years off his life and while he'd been momentarily taken aback, now Midorima is just angry. He's angry at Akashi's taciturn nature that led to this. He's angry that Akashi is so far gone in his own warped construct of strength. Akashi never should have left and he needed to come back this instant.

There is only one way to make that happen. "I will show you the meaning of defeat." 

Akashi draws cold amusement from his challenge. "Have you ever seen me resign once?"

If he sounds a little venomous that couldn't be helped. "This isn't shogi."

"Oh, Shintarou. Whether it's shogi or basketball, there is no difference." Somehow Akashi is looking down on him despite Midorima being a good number of inches taller. "I am always right, therefore I will always win."

Shuutoku has the first possession and Midorima goes full throttle from the start of the clock. "Always right? Don't make me laugh, Akashi. Don't talk as if you know everything when all you've had was victory."

His threes do not unnerve Akashi who merely repays the favor by taking the leash off of his upperclassmen. It isn't anything dramatic until Miyagi blows past the small forward with the strangely pronounced canines and Mibuchi Reo, the one he heard call Akashi Sei-chan of all things chewed him out for it.

Akashi belittles him with no more than the mention of his name and Kotarou dribbles with a ferocity that's unheard of. Since it's common knowledge miracles are above ordinary methods Mibuchi guards him alongside a subpar yet eerily familiar regular, smiling in an impertinent manner. "While it's true we can barely keep you in check with our double team, I can't say the same about the other four." A pitying glance over the rest of Shuutoku. The underlying message is clear. Kotarou hadn't even taken Miyagi seriously to begin with and when he did it became nothing short of a massacre. Mibuchi is looking at the third year the way one would at a dead weight. "Especially him. A shame what a burden that one is. How will he fare against Kotarou?"

It's Mibuchi's funeral. The statement couldn't have been more false and it inspires the urge to prove that his pride in Shuutoku isn't unfounded. There is no room for individual incompetence in a king of Tokyo and Midorima isn't as much of a misanthrope anymore to ignore the reason basketball is a team sport. With Otsubo's levelheaded confidence, Kimura's silent support and Miyagi's biting personality, all three of his upperclassmen fought tooth and nail to get them here. It's no fluke. It's collective effort. It's blood, sweat and tears. A team takes care of its own.

Midorima breaks past their defenses as soon as Kotarou goes for a basket, slapping the ball away. Takao who's always reading his steps before he even takes them, readily intercepted and flung it back. "You're the best, Shin-chan!"

When you underestimate someone, you will effectively neglect them. It's all too simple to take advantage of, Midorima going blitz, playing the role of a moth to a flame. The brick built center falls for his feint that the ball gets to an unguarded Miyagi who dunks, outdoing himself.

"There is not one man on this team who hasn't given his all. Burdens?" Midorima clarifies, not that he needed to with Mibuchi appearing to be eating his words. "I know none of that."

They finish the quarter at a stalemate. It does not ease Midorima one bit. The three uncrowned kings have already displayed some capacity for mind games and Akashi is a master of it. This match is nothing if not psychological warfare and Midorima would be foolish to forget that.

Nakatani is on the same page as he is, cautious and analyzing. "The way he's playing reminds me of shogi." Shogi does not symbolically register to the rest of his teammates the level it does to him. "He's testing the waters."

There's a diminutive nod from Takao and Midorima is reminded of the slight disbelief the other boy displayed upon guarding his former captain. The instruction didn't end in a curb stomp as presumed, but it's only due to the constant of Akashi having something up his sleeve, a winning hand he hadn't want to reveal just yet.

The previous time-out allowed Midorima to confront him for it. "You can't be thinking you can beat me without using your eye, were you?" He's well aware he's poking the lion's den, yet he couldn't care less. The memory of rain, Murasakibara being flattened and Akashi walking away ought to dissuade him, but if anything it exacerbates his need to be met by someone real. This masquerade has to end. The grim possibility of Akashi staying like this forever only reminded him losing isn't an option.

To his credit Akashi had not responded dismissively, instead promising regret. Midorima observes Rakuzan's bench, realizing that time is upon them. Just as expected all bets are off when the second half begins, Akashi finally going head to head against him.

The eye paralyzes him, Akashi stealing the first possession as if he'd given him an opening where there had been none. If Midorima had trouble conceiving the future was something Akashi could divine, it has all dissolved into mist by now.

Takao assumes his position in the face off, yelling, "Not letting you pass!"

"Pass? There's no need for that." Akashi tells him the truth, brusque and matter of fact. "You're going to make way for me."

He cuts back, locking in on the minuscule gap it took to blindside the hawk eye. Takao is the first to fall victim to Akashi's trap. "No one that opposes me is allowed to look down on me." Deliberately standing above the fallen player as if to make an example of him Akashi takes the shot, his order soon accompanied by the swish of the net. "Lower your head."

It's a visceral reaction seeing Akashi's power. In Teikou each of them were legends and together they were unstoppable. Only within themselves existed a worthy opponent. Akashi is strong, if not the strongest among them. Midorima has known that all along. He had to be to have commanded them. The signs were always there. They had played side by side after all. Yet this hunch barely dampens the shock of having it come to fruition.

Before him Akashi is a force of nature, glorious and terrible. Rakuzan's lead grows with every play he makes.

If Midorima wanted Akashi's attention, he clearly has it now. Akashi is unyielding in his dogged pursuit, hot on his tail, predicting his every move. He's heaving air through perforated lungs. He doesn't fumble, doesn't hesitate. Akashi still sees through everything that he is, possession after possession taken from him.

The combined obstacle of Miyagi and Kimura does not deter him the slightest if the same unerring response was any indication. "I'll have you stand aside."

"Don't get too cocky, you first year boy!"

Even Kimura is joining Miyagi's battle cry. "Like hell are we letting you by!"

For all their desperation, Akashi remains a loose canon. It's an orchestra movement the two were subjected to, the view all encompassing and harrowing. The dribble is faultless, toppling them to the floor, unable to catch themselves despite the implausibility of the feat.

"No. My orders are absolute." It's merciless how Akashi breezes past their figures on the ground, expression vacant. Otsubo's luck is no better with Akashi shifting course, imperceptibly knocking the ball sideways with his elbow, reign unchanged when his center makes the basket in his stead.

Akashi seamlessly navigates through scoring and assisting, his kings following suit. Midorima squares off against him once more. "Akashi!"

"Shintarou, you are strong. But you will lose. Who do you think held the Generation of Miracles subservient?" Akashi doesn't miss his intention, curves and ankle breaks him with no second thought. "Even for you, it's impossible to go up against me."

Midorima slips, falls before he knows it. The screams blend into indecipherable static as Akashi goes for another point, the arena completely haywire.

There's Takao at his backside, urging him to get to his feet. "Come on, Shin-chan." His voice is uncharacteristically unsteady.

Leave it to Miyagi to smack him upside the head. "How long are you going to sit there, idiot? I'll crack your glasses!"

It does snap him out of it, especially when Kimura continues with, "Hey! Can't you read that? Get a grip!"

Shuutoku's column, rows and rows of hollering supporters are in full view and so is their banner. Midorima isn't illiterate even in his state. The written characters are glaring and the cheers exuberant. Both humbled him to the core.

"Midorima. Takao." Otsubo's faith in them is calmer as he tossed the ball to the point guard. "Don't give up just yet. Let's play to win. Start with one shot."

That's right. The game is flux until the final buzzer. It isn't over. There's still time. There's still hope.

Takao's smile restores something in him. "You know, Shin-chan... The more I think about it, the more I want to keep playing basketball with these guys."  

Me too, Midorima thinks. With Takao beside him, Takao who has been dependable, fastidious and persistent, he feels more and more in control with every passing second. He rises. "Come on, Takao. Let's show them our trump card."

It's a gamble to rely on his teammates more than himself. He's not an idealist, but he trusts Takao, knows this trust is well rooted and consummated. Discarding the risks Midorima seized his chance, the rest of his team getting into position for the rebound on his mark. 

It's astonishing to the naked eye, assuming a shooting stance empty handed. 

At the apex of his form Takao's pass flies, supple leather landing perfectly in his grip. Midorima takes the shot, knowing full well he might miss.

He doesn't.

The arc is high as ever, the projectile three sailing into the net. It works against Akashi. One shot turns into consecutive baskets and before long they are catching up to Rakuzan. It's too early to believe it's a comeback, but an eight point difference isn't as otherworldly of a goal to chase after. The odds may be in their favor with their current development.

Midorima guards him with renewed vigor. "Shuutoku isn't dead yet. The showdown will begin now."

"More than I assumed, Shintarou. As how it should be." Rather than appearing to be vaguely displeased Akashi looked intrigued. There is no classist tirade to go with the next ankle break that trips Midorima. "It's futile. Step aside."

With that terse declaration the ground is swept from under him. Shouts surround him in the cacophony of the fall. In that moment getting upright felt unfeasible.

No. Not yet. Not like this. He'll surpass his limits as much as he needed to. He said it himself. Akashi won't walk away from him again. It's not over until it is. There is no shame in falling down. There is only shame if he does not stand after the fall.

It's spite that fuels him to regain his direction, sharp and rancid, leaping for the block at breakneck speed despite deriving from a horizontal angle. "Akashi!"

For once the unfettered cry has Akashi taken by surprise. He switches gears when cornered, executing a pass. It's a clash between the centers, one Otsubo came on top of. Shuutoku is playing to win, their engine running hard. It may be overkill to shoot another sky direct three with Takao, but it's exactly what Midorima did, securing their fourth basket in a row. He's on the cliff edge of euphoria, tasting the narcotic if plummeting verge of near victory.

It destabilized Rakuzan judging by the series of fumbles they made. He's double teaming the other miracle alongside Takao, the rest of Shuutoku exerting equal pressure. A sense of foreboding crept at Midorima when Akashi breathes out a sigh, barely inscrutable, and steps back where he should be driving forward.

Midorima is not the only one wide eyed as Akashi transitions, bending indiscriminately at the knees for the spring of a throw beneath his own basket. He aims and shoots.

The scoreboard is the only source of sound in the stadium, rendered lifeless as it rings alarm bells. A knife wouldn't be enough to cut through the atmosphere.

Head bowed and sombre the Rakuzan players gather around their captain. "When did I tell you to drop your concentration? The game isn't over yet." The remark is succinct and to the point. "Did your nerves relax because we got such a huge lead?" Akashi's dismay is palpable. "All this disconcerting just because they scored several goals in succession is undeniable proof of that. If the lead was slimmer, we wouldn't have to make such an unsightly show. If so, I'd sooner get rid of that lead altogether. Calm yourselves down a bit." Guilt emanated from the rest in waves. "If we lose, you can criticize me as much as you want because the reason we lost would be that shot." Midorima knows no matter which Akashi he's facing, he will always be more than well acquainted with accountability. "I will take full responsibility and immediately quit the team."

Invariably such an edict is met by sharp inhales, the backs of his teammates going ramrod straight.

"Furthermore as proof of atonement for my sins I will gouge both of my eyeballs and offer them to you."

He isn't joking. The real Akashi or not, Midorima can tell he is serious no matter how compromised his state of mind happened to be or whether it was those white lies he'd often tell to appease him so long ago. Akashi has never done anything by halves. This is the same boy who went horseback riding at terminal velocity despite having his arm in a sling for fear of neglecting the white mare. This is also a boy who has been driven certifiably mad. That isn't a descriptor anyone would lightly apply to someone but presently Akashi is unstable to the point of being unhinged. It's not a reason to throw the match, it's all the more reason to get him to wake up.

"What are you talking about, Akashi?" Kotarou is the first to protest, horrified. "You don't have to go that far!"

"That is only if we lose. We have no issues if we win." Was that suppose to bring solace? Because if anything the amalgamation of respect and affection Akashi has accumulated as their leader fuse into otherworldly terror. "I am not worried at all. In fact I am confident that with all of you here, there is no way we'll lose." Apparently it was, with Akashi's thinking too convoluted for anyone it might as well be another anomaly.

While Midorima may not show it as the rest of Rakuzan did with their slack jawed gasps, he is just as grim eyed. Akashi has always been one for drastic measures, but this variety of self inflicted violence is entirely unprecedented. Takao simply looks disturbed.

Rakuzan clearly knows better than not to take Akashi's word for it, expressions hardening to battle ready. They're more dangerous now than ever.

Returning to the match Akashi's silhouette is unassuming, but his words are short of a premonition. "You will no longer be able to touch the ball."

Midorima does not fall prey to the taunt. Takao is skirting the edge of a blockade, nothing in between their path.

In the blink of an eye Akashi squarely catches the pass meant for him. He scores, relentless, rallies each of his kings to do the same. "There is one flaw to that shot." He addresses all of Shuutoku, essentially schooling them. "The initial direction is limited in order to pass to the left handed Shintarou. I had your point guard purposely double teamed to minimize the distance. And of course Shintarou's shooting form remains the same as always. In other words, I didn't even need my eye to determine the course and timing of the pass."

Takao looks two seconds away from biting Akashi's head off which was understandable. Then he just looks lost, unable to comprehend how Akashi had the foresight to lower his speed in the first half to insure this outcome. Otsubo fares no better, stuck between gaping wordlessly and turning apoplectic from frustration. They had a chance, a solid chance and yet all that effort will always fall short when the groundwork had already been laid ahead.

"You were above what I assumed, but you were not above what I imagined," commends Akashi.

Midorima didn't want to believe it either, but Akashi just dealt them the final blow and had planned to since his advent. Just like shogi as he so audaciously though rightfully claimed. It's possible for Akashi who let himself be unmade, who viewed the world in spyglass to decide this game before it began. The inevitable heartbreak seizes him, punches the breath out of his chest.

Mibuchi somehow extracts a foul from Takao. 

"It's over, Shintarou." It's salt in the wound when Akashi grabs the last possession and Midorima fails to mark him, hitting the ground again. "I show you my respect anew. Until the end not one of you lost the will to fight. But you still can't reach." Defiant to the last second Midorima claws through air, tasting the bitter tang of ash. "Rest, veteran kings."

This is loss.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Midorima is jolted by the fixed reality of Akashi, albeit halfheartedly accepting his inability to change him back. Moving on is a waning desire when Akashi is standing so close, just across the field even if his real self is about as far off as the moon. This is just another pyrrhic victory, meaningless and empty as the vitrine space of another trophy for someone who does not know defeat.

Akashi does not need congratulatory praise and Midorima has never been one to voluntarily demean himself. But there's always something about him whenever they're in one room that his center of gravity shifts, caught in Akashi's orbit. And surely asking to be rivals and friends, no matter how tenuous of a friendship left to remain between them is no exorbitant request.

Midorima extends a hand. "It's your win today, Akashi. Next time we won't lose."

"I will give you my thanks, Shintarou. That was the first game that had any thrill in a while." The lone victor eyed the hand lent out to him distastefully though subtle, then focused back on his face. "However I must apologize I cannot accept that handshake."

The reasoning behind it is contrived and as vicious as it is heartrending. It confirms all he knew to be true. Paired with the stereotypical elitist attitude Akashi had consistently ward off before, it likened him to the story of an identity forcefully reforged. Masaomi had flogged and isolated a malleable child who fought him tooth and nail before he finally succeeded transforming him in his image.

"I want to be your enemy."

 

 

* * *

 

 

His first week at Teikou the clay sculpture of a grizzly bear is batted off his hand quite literally, the culprit sprinting off to evade capture as well as the threat of recompense. Midorima doesn't care if it's intentional or not because there's sharp bits of pottery over the hallway and more importantly he'll have to go through the rest of his day sans his lucky item. At least his taped fingers acted as a makeshift glove, a buffer between his skin and the shards as he began collecting them.

When help came he thought it'd be in the form of a broom and a dust pan, but it's no janitor who stood then knelt before him, precisely plucking the damage scattered over ceramic, depositing them deftly into his waiting palm. The affair is concluded rather quickly.

He looks up to see dark eyes that would have been bewitching if they weren't so inquisitorial. "Are you alright?"

Midorima nods, about to thank him for the aid before being swallowed by mortification when he realizes there's scarlet drawn from the tips of the stranger's digits. "You-"

The boy is uncaring of his senseless altruism that might as well be self endangerment when a faculty member calls out from the stairway, "Akashi, the headmaster would like to see you now."

Akashi is abound and Midorima doesn't so much as thank him as he watched him flee the halls.

I want to be your friend, is a fleeting thought.

Midorima remembers it that night, awake, dry eyed and heartsick. He hasn't the faintest clue if Akashi has forgotten the encounter altogether. He desperately wishes Akashi hadn't excommunicated himself the way he did, desperately clings on to the hope that this isn't forever.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Akashi loses and his better half crawls out of his consciousness, vanquishing the tyrant, emerging from its fugue state.

For a good while he had been with the absence of feeling, capable of blithe machinations, now he is but filled with an excess of it. What a monster he was, is. It's still in him. The epiphany haunts him. He had let everything happen the moment he rather become his fear than face it. The torrent of emotions cut into him the way a blade on a pendulum would. Guilt and shame congeal into a chaotic miasma, the burn of it excavating his chest. He's really himself now, unreasonably angry and uncontrollably sad. The shudder that rips through his spine is involuntary. It's still better than succumbing to being less than cognizant of his actions if the panorama of his heedless cruelty was any reminder. He has done inexplicably reprehensible things, things he doesn't expect to be forgiven for.

Confetti is raining on Seirin whose collective members' spirits are celebratory. There's screaming and hooting, a complete riot as a good number of people from the stands went down to join the festive mood.

Kuroko has moved heaven and earth. His victory is well deserved. More importantly Akashi may very well owe him a great debt for triggering his change. Faintly Akashi registers the swell of pride despite his comeuppance. The shadow has come a long way, damned the odds. Kuroko's dogged determination, his resourcefulness had only been a number of the many reasons why Akashi had wanted him while he'd been Teikou's captain. This is just another manifestation of the truth.

Kuroko catches his eye and smiles tentatively.

There's the salt of sweat and tears in his own, partly blurring his vision as Akashi returns the expression. "It truly is your victory, Kuroko. Congratulations." He is proud of him, proud of their sixth man. He is grateful that their paths intertwined. "Next time we will win."

"Yes." Kuroko shakes the hand held out to him, goes as far to cover Akashi's fingers with his other palm as if wanting to treasure his touch. It's momentary comfort, the affectionate dichotomy of it striking against the way his heart is struggling to break free of his ribs. Kuroko might as well have locked his warm hand above it that for a time Akashi lived without his fear. "Let's play again. Many times again."

He has forfeited all rights when it comes to this boy, to all five of them, yet here he is offering him the promise of friendship. Kuroko is indeed something else.

Akashi doesn't dare seize it. He had taken twisted gratification out of their misery, Kuroko's above all. He didn't deserve this. But for Kuroko's sake, he nods. It's decided.

Akashi will repent or die trying.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The dark expanse of the winter sky was the color of midnight, a moonless breadth if it weren’t for the speck of white cold silver in the abyss. It's far enough from the metropolitan complex that when the wind blows, it howls, coming in sweeping husks amidst the silence. The temperature had plummeted, the oppressive heat of Tokyo summers long forgotten.

As if yanked from an uneasy dream Midorima had taken curious steps into the wide open air balcony of the tournament dome. While his own need for privacy is near uncontested, this is something that needs to be done if he wanted concrete results.

Aomine Daiki straightened only very slightly at his encroaching presence although his posture remains atrocious as ever as he continued to lean on the balustrade, letting out a gruff, "Midorima."

Midorima couldn't blame him for this at least, knowing it was unlikely the neanderthal was ever subjected to a slew of etiquette classes despite nearing the cusp of adulthood. Still displaying good manners is never in poor taste. "I wouldn't want to impose but do you mind if I join you?"

It's even better when it takes aback Aomine who isn't used to Midorima being considerate. He rubs the back of his neck, subconsciously folding his arms on the railing thereafter and making room for him. "Sure, whatever. Knock yourself out."

There is no correct opening to this conversation. Alas he has to bridge the gap somehow and the series of silhouettes by the courtyard Aomine was definitely spying on serve as an omen. Seirin is a rambunctious bunch by normal standards, even more so victorious. Below the biting chill of the weather seems to not have ailed their spirits one bit. The captain and coach paced ahead, the rest of the starters and the few second stringers following soon after. Straggling at the rear of the group are two distinct figures. Their contrasting outlines would have profiled them already and there's the faint sound of barking. The canine is surely pleased at the first of snowfall, running in circles by his master's feet.

Their slow movement is a mystery no longer when the taller of the two expended his iota of restraint and promptly hauled the other onto his back, completely unencumbered as he marched forward with the traction, brisk, eliciting the rare sound of muted laughter. It's startled and lined with exhaustion. It still echoes in light.

If Midorima is hit with a crippling sense of dejavu at the sight of them, god only knows what Aomine is feeling. Ciphering it is too easy with what them having won three national championships together and Aomine's veneer being paper thin. It's the one thing that hasn't changed about him.

The man slouching before him looks nothing like the impish schoolboy that freshman year at Teikou, having all but traded his perpetual smiles for a permanently hard eyed glower, fire doused and replaced by a constant film of boredom. He's broken out of the spell obviously, but with it having taken root in him for so long, the brunt of it would linger before it could fully dissipate. Calling what he's doing moping seems lacking in deference and ruminating too elegant so Midorima settles for an unnamed territory, focusing on the facts. Aomine had been the most passionate out of them when it came to basketball. His own impatience for a true challenge being his shortcoming aside, growing to despise it as fiercely as he did must have been torture. Just as Icarus flew too close to the sun and burned to nothingness, Aomine soared, inflamed with the brightness of a comet only to plunge into an icy crevasse.

Midorima would attempt empathy if it would do them any good, but Kuroko's own endless reserve of it had been martyred into an erroneous case of failure. Therefore it is no conundrum to waive socially acceptable niceties. Succor will not aid someone like Aomine. With that in mind Midorima speaks. "Do you regret what you relinquished?"

Aomine snorts. "You're still a prick."

Midorima takes the comment in stride. "You'll find I care little for people's opinions."

Aomine knew that or else he wouldn't have dealt with a hilariously aloof yet ornery teammate for the entirety of middle school. He's never heard as many variations of the word idiot before he met the bespectacled shooting guard. There were also the I beg your pardon days before the gloves were off at least and all they were doing amounted to slinging metaphorical mud at each other.

"Yeah?" Aomine demanded if a little angrily, "Then why are you here trying to lend me a shoulder to cry on like some sort of mother hen?"

Midorima does not take kindly to the insinuation but if this is what will get Aomine to talk and more importantly to listen, then he'll take his chances. "It wasn't my intention. But it isn't like I have better things to do. I'd rather lend you an ear however."

The truth was more along the lines he's still uncertain if approaching Akashi right away after his loss was a good idea. Giving it some time was the wisest course of action however for once Midorima is having difficulty seeing through his commitment to wait. He's stalling and simultaneously forcing this to not be another fruitless run in. A better man would rethink stalking after Aomine who clearly wants to be left without company with his red rimmed eyes and overall evasiveness. Midorima is not a better man, preferring to strike when most vulnerable.

It's the right choice when Aomine begins reluctantly, "You remember that play at the last quarter? Not the final dunk, the one before the four point one."

The one that caught Akashi off guard, prescient or not. How could Midorima forget. Kagami always played as if he were more than human, but that was on another plane entirely with the rest of Seirin somehow filling in the blanks before they were communicated. Midorima registers Aomine recognized the unknown element that allowed them to, eager to hear more. Without further ado he answers with a low hum, nodding.

Aomine explains or tries to. Midorima has always known that Aomine's understanding of the game is instinctual. The spiel is solemn, sometimes scatterbrained enough to trail off path. It is also rather scintillating, Midorima has to admit.

Gatekeeper, Aomine had said. The wistfulness that accompanies the dry rasp as he voiced his observation would probably encourage a more personable listener to initiate some form of physical contact, to offer consolation. Midorima gives what he can, an unbiased perspective would never hurt anyone. More importantly it would get things done.

"I could've had that with him," says Aomine. "But I threw it all away. It was him. It was always him."

The key word here is almost. Almost there. Almost us. It's connotative yet all too transparent. Aomine would have almost loved basketball again had he waited, that is true. But if Aomine believed he was only almost loved, he is wrong.

Kuroko may be bullheaded, but he is very much sane. He wouldn't have spent over half a year trying to stand shoulder to shoulder with them in a sport he has zero aptitude in if Aomine hadn't been involved. The game and their personal lives always existed in mutual importance to Kuroko. He was never impervious to emotion as much as he strove to be. And Aomine is his first light no matter what transpired between them afterwards.

Midorima decides regret is unbecoming on Aomine. "If you're feeling introspective, I suggest taking steps in repairing the damage. And take preventive action from repeating this if you will."

"Tetsu's the goddamn magician, not me. I'm no good at fixing things. Pretty sure I'd wreck it more."

"Says the one who punched Haizaki into next week," parrots Midorima. "Your regrettable powers of persuasion while primitive is practical."

"And Satsuki says she hates gossiping," grumbles Aomine though there's no real bite to it. "Huh. Thought you'd say something like violence is never the answer."

Midorima would like to affirm such sagely advice. He has sorely learned his lesson however that indecision is a decision. He won't make the same mistake twice. "Sometimes it's the only answer with those types."

Then with no context, "Hey, is your ass still bruised?"

Fortunately or rather unfortunately Midorima understands where this is going and while he normally has a shorter fuse for venereal humor, this is actually a legitimate interest so he merely replies, "I wouldn't know. I haven't checked."

Aomine is also diverting, but Midorima is astute and unbeknownst to the power forward this is in fact an excellent method to bind the two issues into one. They were related after all. "I thought Akashi would have gone easy on you. But he's always had some sort of napoleon complex."

The wit deserves a compliment. "I'm surprised you noticed. Though whatever gave you the impression he would be lenient I have no idea."

Aomine flaps a hand at that. "He's obvious as fuck. Every time he thinks no one's staring, he looks like he wants to climb you like a tree. You're no better in case you were wondering."

Midorima has mixed feelings about this. While Aomine is the furthest thing from imperceptive, they took measures to be discreet. On the other hand it's flattering to know Akashi was looking at him.

"I see," Midorima surmises. "Frankly Akashi has never been one for special privileges."

Aomine shakes his head. "Figured your type was batshit crazy."

That, Midorima cannot accept lightly. "You ignorant fool. He only went batshit crazy because we were all content with negligence."

Aomine counters, "Now you're saying we're somehow to blame for that stick up his ass? Get real, Midorima."

Deathly still Midorima tells him, "Akashi has been abused his whole life and he won't tell a soul for obvious reasons. I found out our second year at Teikou and he still insists he's fine. His x-rays are consistent with that of a retired cage fighter, one who doesn't hit back. I was with him when he almost died from internal injuries one time."

"What?" He knew Akashi might have had issues, you don't visibly lose your shit on the court unless you had some, but this is wrong. This is so wrong. Aomine stuttered, "Why are you- Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I trust you'll do what's right in the future and keep this information to yourself. Because while Murasakibara had been the straw that broke the camel's back, you were the one who had the power to set an example for the team. You were our ace, Aomine. That means something. Call it the butterfly effect."

Aomine is at a loss for words, unable to manage any if it weren't for a defeated, "I know."

Midorima sighs. "Hubris is the most dangerous pitfall of talent. It will bring you to ruins. You chose it the moment you were content to rest on your laurels for whatever reason and became the cheap imitation of a sloth. Akashi has the opposite problem from his upbringing and it created a different set of complications. I don't expect you to deal with them. I only expect you to deal with yours. Fix what you broke with Kuroko, Aomine. For your sake more than anyone else." 

"You're such a bastard." While Aomine's walls of profanity may have formerly done its job to push everyone away, its effectiveness has ebbed away with blatant misuse that Midorima is immune. His bluster isn't threatening. If anything it's pitiful. Apart from Midorima's censure Touou's ace seems to have realized this on his own, steeling his features into something stern. That expression alone erases Midorima's doubts on whether Aomine will seriously reform. "I'll try to mend things with Tetsu. I was planning on it anyway." A pause and then, "Is Akashi going to be alright?"

"That isn't for me to say," answers Midorima. "Aomine, I may have spoken rather harshly. We were all unruly children I suppose. But to chalk everything up to the stupidity of youth just won't do. You've seen what happened."

Aomine finds himself agreeing to the cause although he hated every reminder of it. Give him a break. It's been a rough week. "You didn't tell me anything that I didn't warrant. I've needed that wake up call for a while. It's just I've been getting a lot of those lately."

Midorima knows how draining that could be and almost feels sorry for him. There is one more thing Aomine will benefit from hearing, something he probably needed more than all that's been said to him. "While Kuroko may believe in Kagami, it doesn't mean he lost his faith in you. Or else he wouldn't have gone through all that trouble to reach you. Do well to remember that."

Aomine lets him leave in the opposite direction with a muttered, "Yeah."

He leans back, lets the black night wash over him and feels a little lighter instead of lost, ready to come home.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Akashi crashes.

Logically he knows the amount of rest and food he rewards his body is deficient but he cannot find it in himself to care much for proper nourishment. Not when there's so much on his plate. He works at a punishing rhythm, taking breaks only sparingly then none at all. It's enough to sour his mood into uncharacteristically disgruntled that excusing himself from Rakuzan's dorms in the weekends to avoid questioning from his peers and professors alike was best. He's completed his finals for the semester and another two weeks worth of online worksheets for the new year anyway. It helps that his lethargy is a worsening concern he neither has the time nor strength to keep up appearances. He'd rather make optimum use of his absence before he has to return to the real world.

This is safe though, much safer that if it were possible he'd gladly make peace with his self imposed exile. Celestial objects were all but shunned with the drapes pulled shut that he hasn't been able to tell the time for the past few days if it weren't for the grandfather clock of the study.

He can feel it take its toll on him, sense the life leaking out of him, pouring slowly as if exsanguinated. He doesn't have the will to stop it.

The first night, flaccid while still in his sweat damp jersey after the closing ceremony of the Winter Cup Akashi had consulted a number of reputable articles in regards to his affliction and emerged none the wiser.

He arrives to the same conclusion he's always known, being that he is defective and no cure exists.

Akashi stumbles upon pictures of monolithic rooms, biological experiments advertising long term solutions and immediate improvements, only to see walls and needles and straitjackets and vomits into the waste bin. It's just bile and saliva and he's lightheaded and muddled by the end of it.

While he may have found the methods to be barbaric, he had to agree on the principle.

Isolation is how monsters are contained.

On a subliminal level he should realize that this magnitude of self loathing is unhealthy and he should probably find some way to augment his self esteem. But Akashi is circling the drain and his health has never taken priority. There are miles to go before he sleeps and far too many skeletons to unearth.

The dull throb under his left eye reminds him to keep moving, flaring in shaky bursts whenever his leaden limbs make him fall behind on schedule as if an invisible tight skinned wound. He is aware that selective memory of his actions would grant him watered down consequence, but then he would hate himself even more.

Psychological or not, the pain was unwilling to recede.

Even if it threatens to permanently reside somewhere it can no longer be untangled from him, Akashi gives in to the siren song of penance instead and drowns as easily as a man in a hurricane.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Midorima is not in the habit of sharing his personal mobile number. Hence when an unregistered caller rings him he's prepared altogether to sever the line as he detested telemarketing scams.

Still even telemarketers aren't so obtuse to try calling closer to dawn than well over sunrise that he reconsiders. Besides his alarm was due for only another five minutes with him having intended on an early jog today. Midorima presses receive, holds the phone to his ear. "Hello?"

"Midorima Shintarou-kun." The voice on the other end, an amicable if rushed baritone with the lilt of Kyoto-ben is familiar. "Thank goodness you picked up. I'm sorry for the rude hour."

While the polite interlude removes some of his uneasiness, Midorima had to ask, "Who is this? How did you get this number?"

"This is Mibuchi Reo from Rakuzan." Midorima puts a face to the name and it's painstakingly clear this isn't a social call. Mibuchi admits empathically, "I may have searched through Sei-chan's contacts list to find you. Not my best decision I know, but desperate times. Sei-chan has been really off."

Akashi will probably make him pay dearly for the subterfuge but if anything Midorima just respects it. Akashi would too, once he saw the validity of the motive. "Tell me what happened."

"Ah, well... You know Sei-chan has always been a bit of a perfectionist." A bit is an understatement and they both know it. "But he's really doing a number on himself with the overworking. The other day he ran a fever and not only he came to practice he dunked on _Eikichi_. Then he apologized! It was really cute but also very distressing. Was he always this precious?"

Yes. Hope spreads through him in a rapid movement. "His eyes. Are they both-"

"A lovely shade of red? Mhmm." Mibuchi added, "And they're both intact, we can all rest easy. People don't get it but we like Sei-chan just as well before. To put it mildly they think of him as controlling to the point of obsessive but they don't know he's still the most generous person in the room even when he's all uptight. But I know that how he was isn't natural. I just want him to be well. He never really said much about himself but I have my theories."

"You can cease your stressful speculation, Mibuchi-san. Akashi is strong enough." Yet Akashi's strength isn't something to be taken for granted. It isn't unfailing as much as much as he liked to pretend otherwise. They all know it. It is the very reason for this conversation.

"Reo is fine, Shintarou-kun. Dear me, I'm afraid I have a tendency to overstep." Beating around the bush defeats the purpose and proper honorifics is the last thing Midorima wants to argue on.

"You aren't," assures Midorima. "Shintarou-kun will be fine."

"Can I rely on you to check on him then? He once mentioned you knew him well. I'd get him to tell me his address but Sei-chan's been awfully withdrawn lately. I don't want him to close off even further." Mibuchi sighs, disheartened. "I used to be able to limit his all nighters when he's boarding here. It should have been nothing a good old group sleepover couldn't solve."

Apparently that has changed since Akashi is set on being a stubborn mule. At least it's reassuring to know that Rakuzan can be counted on in having Akashi's best interest at heart. Mibuchi has proven himself to be dependable with his willingness to cross the lengths in enlisting him.

"I'll see what I can do, Reo-san." It's a given Midorima will do his part, do everything humanly possible. "I appreciate your call. I aim to return to you with better news."

"I'll hold you to that." There's quiet shuffling and the noise of a tap running that Midorima would wager the upperclassman was just starting the motions of the day. "My, I can't believe I must inconvenience a kouhai. Thank you for agreeing to this. Well I suppose I should go. Take care, Shintarou-kun."

"It's no inconvenience at all. And likewise, Reo-san."

The line goes off. He speeds through his own rituals, ready just as morning light came. He browses for trains and there's a Nozomi to Kyoto in less than thirty minutes. What better time to meet Akashi than the present?

He eyes the omamori tucked away in his shelf, grabs it on impulse. There was a reason he purchased the charm after all.

Another two hours until he sees Akashi.

Midorima has waited long enough.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The Akashi residence is a labyrinth of dark tapestries, held together by marble pillars and sweeping glass ceilings. The gates are lined with ivy, cold and menacing. The structure cuts an imposing figure. The woodwork of the stable grounds almost looks out of place, marooned at a distant corner among the scant blooms of vanilla marigold. Its size stretches and considering that it's well manicured. The staff must be tireless.

One of them lets him enter, promptly fussing over the rare appearance of a visitor for the young master cooped indoors and Midorima weaves his way in.

There's nothing like the moment Midorima is able to instantly infer it's him, the moment he laid eyes on Akashi.

It has been almost a month since his impromptu trim and his hair had grown out, now brushing against his brows. Akashi hasn't even noticed his presence, buried in a stack of paperwork. There's sheets everywhere, lying on every surface imaginable, some haphazardly pinned together and some cluttered on the carpet where they have fallen. He's sitting in the middle of an avalanche. His purview might as well be a bird's nest. Alarmingly there's the thick musty scent of alcohol and not the diluted variety if the amber liquid remaining in half empty tumblers were indeed suspect.

Further inspection of their surroundings had Midorima blinking. He may currently be looking at the innermost secrets of the Akashi empire. There's legalese everywhere and Akashi is putting together a dossier of some sort.

"I see you've been productive." Midorima didn't mean to scare the life out of Akashi, but he'd been too immersed to react any other way.

"Midorima." Fairly confident he's been sober for the better part of the afternoon, Akashi can't be hallucinating. He's still debating on some other explanation however. Midorima couldn't be here. He couldn't. "What are you doing here?"

"Your teammates are worried about you." Midorima strides forward. "As am I."

"Reo asked you to intervene," is Akashi's sullen deduction.

"With good reason," Midorima reminded. "Just what do you think are you doing, Akashi? Insomnia is not a coping mechanism and neither is distancing yourself. It won't help anyone, least of all you." Akashi steers backwards just as they're in touching proximity and Midorima frowns. "What are you afraid of?"

For a split second when Akashi saw Midorima, he thought he could do it. He would sacrifice all of his secrets if it meant a second chance with him. It would have been easy to let his need define him for once. But Akashi has taken enough, taken too much. He's maimed and ruined them all to dust.

"I remember," he says instead. "I remember everything I've done. Some transgressions are unforgivable."

"It wasn't you." Midorima sounds certain.

"It was my face, my hands. It was my voice." This close Akashi appeared anemic. "To atone is not possible. Not when at any time I could become him."

That's about right. Midorima has done some reading of his own. The empirical literature was inconclusive. Though retaining it was another matter you had to be pushed quite unwittingly to assume an alternate. Stress, physical danger, emotional trauma, anything that puts stress on the individual can be a trigger. Yet Akashi was born to a life designed of stressors. It is what made him him. It was also his unmaking. The fact he reverted back however speaks for itself.

And Midorima knows that Akashi is more than just a product of his circumstance, more than the sum of his parts. It just so happens he likes those parts just fine. Maybe it's that simple. Akashi may see it as another thing he has to live with. To Midorima it's something they can work with. 

"I know it's part of you," Midorima says. "But there is no part of you I can hate."

"You can't mean that." Because there is devotion then there is insanity. And Midorima isn't half the masochist Akashi is. After all this Midorima should want nothing to do with him. He should be running for the hills. "You should hate me. I wish you would."

"Do you want me to gloat? Do you want me to kick you when you're down? I think you're asking the wrong person." The maid had confirmed the man in question had been absent on a fortnight long business trip to Seoul and would be missing well into new year's eve. Figures. At the mention of him Akashi's gaze hardens. "I hate what he made you become. I hate that you're hurting because of him."

The portrait Midorima painted was ideal. Akashi, a victim. Akashi, a hostage of his own mind. If only in reality he were so noble. "I made my own decisions. I didn't become anything I didn't let myself be. Would I be worthy of any punishment I would have taken it."

Punishment. This is punishment. Midorima has long realized Akashi would rather remain adrift in purgatory for the rest of his life if he had his way. Too bad Midorima won't let him.

"You've taken enough." This is the Akashi he knows, kind and assertive. This is also Akashi, forlorn and running on fumes. "Akashi, you have nothing to atone for. And if you do, trust me it's not in the manner you're thinking of."

"You need to leave if you know what's good for you." Can't you see that I'm trying to protect you? Can't you see that I'm trying to protect you from me? Akashi bit back.

"You're scared and it's you who wants to run away," Midorima says. "I don't fear you, Akashi. I fear for you."

"I can't..." Akashi croaks, "I can't keep hurting you."

Midorima disagrees. Pain was a universal experience. You'd have to be excluded from humanity to ever be free of it. He has never felt more alive. The burn of belonging to Akashi and for he to belong to him in return, Midorima wouldn't trade it for anything. "Why don't you let me be the judge of that?"

"Why do you want to try again?" The thought was inconceivable to Akashi. Even if they start over, go slow, restore the cracks and rebuild the friendship they once had... "Why would it be any different this time?"

Midorima wishes it were as straightforward as taming your pain the moment you give it a name. It isn't. That hasn't changed at all.

But before he had dove into uncharted waters and acted no better than a passive bystander. From the beginning rather than offering to carry the weight alongside Akashi, Midorima should have reinforced it instead of taken no for an answer when Akashi would have rather shouldered it on his own. No man is an island. It was clearly a mistake to let a canyon open between them and expect a different outcome than what happened.

"Because if we're doing this, I have some conditions." Midorima stressed, "You have to learn to talk. You have to talk. To me. To anyone."

The emphasis is justified. Akashi has to let go of his language of half truths. He's unprepared to surrender his artificial smiles for beneath it he's ugly and messy and tiring and Midorima can't be in his right mind to sign up for this.

"I wondered," Akashi says, barely above a whisper. "I wondered if I told you how worthless, vile and empty I really am..." Midorima's breath catches at this. And if the world ever thought that Akashi couldn't understand a pain so heavy it would make him want to get rid of it in any way he could, he would gladly watch it burn. "Would you still try to make me whole?"

Midorima vowed, "Every day."

Perfection does not exist. It's times like these Akashi contemplates its existence, if fleeting. It's just like Midorima to resurrect everything that long died within him with only but a few words.

The dam breaks just like that. Akashi automatically wants to hide before the tear tracks show and it's a mutual exchange as Midorima could no longer resist holding him either, not when Akashi is heaving raw quivering sobs. If there's an end to it, it doesn't look like it's anytime soon. "I- I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"Be gentler to yourself." Midorima smooths back matted clumps from his eyes and begs, "Try, Akashi. For me if you can't do it for yourself just yet."

For you I will, Akashi promises deep down, unable to say anything for he's still suffocating. It takes him a few but the residual air allows him to finally speak. "Wouldn't you be happier with someone else?"

"I don't want anybody else," is a bone deep certainty. "I'd rather stay in the darkness than walk into the light without you."

"I'm sorry," Akashi says again, because what else is there for him to say? "I don't really know if I could ever be good."

"You were always perfect to me." Akashi laughs wetly at that, remembering the first time he heard it. Midorima wipes away salt crusted tears. "I missed you."

"I missed you, too." Akashi breathes Midorima in, breathes in the memory of spring. A clock tower, a dream, a warmth that won't leave. There's the press of lips on the crown of his head and Akashi clings onto the fabric of his shirt, rumpling it into something far past presentable and murmurs, "Sorry."

Midorima knows it's not just for the wrinkles and holds him tighter. "Never apologize for this."

Akashi has more or less lost the autonomy to think, knowing attempting to continue working would only lead to errors. He can't afford any and at last gives in. The table is already blurring in front of him, his socked toe having bumped into its leg. "I think I need to lie down for a bit."

Midorima admits, "I was about to suggest the same."

Akashi's bedroom is only next door, but it seems as if they have entered another realm with its state of affairs. It's pristine, the sheets untouched, armoires dusted and desk tidied. Midorima knows Akashi hasn't stepped foot in it for weeks at the very least, months perhaps.

Getting Akashi to the four poster bed without further disruption becomes an exercise in care taking when he longingly eyes the implements of the silver tray stowed by the edge of the work station. Trust Akashi's night cap to be obscenely expensive cognac.

For once Akashi does not submit to its temptation, eroded by Midorima's presence. Midorima hadn't exactly shown outward disapproval, but his unamused sideways glance conveyed as much. Compromise and honesty to each other and within, those were Midorima's terms. If Akashi wanted to get off on the right foot, this might as well be the place to start. He gingerly lies back into the nest of pillows, sees less and less until Midorima is but a curtain of green shadow bending over him. Need fills him, desperate and wild despite his eyes growing too heavy to be kept open. He doesn't want to let go. He wants this to last. Midorima promised him a world where his heart no longer betrayed him, where he is absolved of his sins.

Midorima is aware Akashi has aged in more ways than one, but he couldn't have looked any younger with his frame swallowed in swathes of blankets. Akashi has yet to release him, still clutching tight on his fingers as if afraid to let go. The shine of those irises dismantles the emotions in Midorima. I'm here, he means to say as he grips back just as hard.

"I don't want to wake up alone." The confession flays him bare to the bones.

He slips away as Midorima tells him, "I'll be here."

 

 

* * *

 

 

Akashi sleeps. Midorima is as good as his word, only pacing as far as the end of the quarters to examine the collection of books displayed in the wall length archive. He plucks one to pass time with and retreats to the upholstered armchair near the canopy.

It's a good thing he settled on a banal title because staying vigil at Akashi's bedside isn't exactly made for leisurely thoughts. It takes him half an hour to reach the addendum of the text. When he returns the volume to its shelf, he's reminded of the strip of paper that's been in his wallet for the majority of the year.

He unfolds it, attempts the pretense of making out the hideous doctor's scrawl of lithium and remeron before giving up, swearing to never take part in the sadly widespread stereotype. His father had contacted an associate to commission the prescription on trial basis, tailoring it to fit Akashi's description. While there wasn't any doubt whether Ryu was trustworthy, his name hadn't been disclosed in the hospital records due to breach of information elsewhere. It's all too easy to sensationalize a story befalling the heir of one of Japan's most influential companies after all.

More importantly Midorima prayed Akashi would see past his pride to not reject the pills. He knew the thought of a crutch although temporary did not sit well with him. He only hoped that Akashi understood recovery is in the cards for him as long as he wanted it. And if Midorima happened to want enough for the both of them, it was only bound to help.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Akashi wakes slightly before nightfall. At Midorima's suggestion he takes his work to the patio overlooking the garden. When it became apparent that Akashi and the documents were inseparable, Midorima took in the fact that he at least no longer looked like he was on the brink of collapse and resolved to have him continue somewhere he won't be superimposed by the dismal state of the study. The change of space aided by the fresh air and fragrance of tea came into full effect.

It took Akashi a full minute of silence to accept the pharmaceutical products prescribed to him. Midorima relaxes at the small okay he lets out in agreement, more than content to just watch him then. Time flies over Akashi as he skims through a series of financial records until he feels the weight of his gaze on him and decides on cue, "I'd like to show you something."

Akashi lets him in what he's working on and Midorima realizes he needn't worry for his initiative. Old habits die hard but it's a testament of Akashi's will that he's doing this. It's unthinkable to believe otherwise when Akashi is trying harder than he's ever had to in anything.

"A hostile takeover," Midorima summarizes after Akashi's given him permission to survey the basics of the compendium. "You intend to threaten him with mutually assured destruction."

Akashi had cashed in every favor anyone's ever owed him, probably racking up a good amount from international calls but an inflated phone bill is the least of his concerns. He'd juggled through decades worth of accounting whilst substituting alcohol for sleep and sacrificing his sanity in the process. He'd conjured a timeline, definitive and exact. Had he cared Midorima would hide the fact that he's in awe of what Akashi singlehandedly has planned in a matter of weeks. To think he had done this while compromised. If Midorima thought he ever had an idea what Akashi was capable of, he's in sore need of a reassessment.

"My uncle will have to get involved." My uncle as in the ruling emperor, Midorima's mind wisely supplants for he would have been unmistakably misled by the terminology had he not. It's clear Akashi wants to avoid the situation at all costs if it weren't for the fact that only the powers of the crown would grant him an upper hand. "I've patched most of the evidence through my long lost retainer but he told me it would take a while before I could get an audience with him. Turns out the downside to having dodged repeated summons as a child is having to be verified through the proper channels when it counts."

"Patience is a virtue," Midorima acknowledges. "The time we still have on our hands before the subpoena can be used to our advantage as well."

"True on both accounts." Akashi doesn't miss the use of our, finding tangible comfort in the idea. They've always worked well as a duo. "Therefore if I've been remiss in some areas, I would greatly value your insight."

Midorima helps him review, points out hypothetical trajectories. Notably Akashi has a solution for each scenario. He finally addresses other worthwhile repercussions such as, "I imagine plenty are ready to usurp Masaomi's place and that regardless of competence you won't be lacking in those who conflict with such young leadership."

"We'll downsize," declares Akashi. "I don't actually have an interest in running a business of that scale after university. My seat on the board of investors may be permanent but my place in the office will be just for the transition. After I weed out all the rats I'm retiring from the corporate world. Two years of backstabbing is more than enough to have my fill of it, don't you think? Professional shogi is more my speed."

Midorima grins. "I don't doubt that. Is there anyone you have in mind to appoint director?"

"Ah." Akashi has clearly given some thought to the matter. "Would you be so inclined to share Kagami Taiga's contact with me?"

Midorima pings his phone with the aforementioned data and voices his confusion. "While it would be kind of you to apologize for swinging a pair of scissors like a rapier on him, I'm afraid I don't follow."

"That would be my introduction I suppose." Akashi massaged the bridge of his nose. He still couldn't quite believe he tried to stab Seirin's ace the last time he interacted with him. Stupid. "Do you think he'll hang up on me?"

Midorima responds, "Kagami Taiga isn't one to keep grudges."

Good, Akashi thinks. It's what made him so different unlike some of them who would probably qualify for it if it were an Olympic sport. Haizaki's for Kise certainly hasn't lost its fervor, he has heard.

"It turns out I've met his parent several times in the past. Decent at shogi." That's probably the easiest course of approval from Akashi. "Only I didn't recognize they were related until recently." Midorima didn't blame him. To think the progenitor of that basketball idiot ran in the same circles as Akashi. "His father is a rather experienced private consultant. More importantly he's quite principled." Now that part does sound rather familiar. "I plan to offer him the position should he be willing."

They've covered all the bases with that. Midorima eyes the protective cloth layered over the furnishings in the other side of the french doors in question. "You've refurbished some of the furniture. Were you planning on renovating the estate?"

"More like repurposing it," says Akashi, for some reason shy.

Midorima understands when he names the foundation he had gotten in touch with on a whim, having all but sold the property at face value then largely donating separate amounts of the fund anonymously back into the charity when the chairwoman refused.

"An orphanage." Midorima found it equal parts sad and lovely. "That's very generous of you."

"I will never find home in this place." Akashi sounds resigned. "It won't ever be mine but it doesn't mean it can't be one for someone else."

"Your mother will be proud of you." If she isn't already and Midorima would bet she is.

The remark has content flushing over him. It's momentary for Akashi is reminded he's yet to deserve her pride. "I'm done letting him cower behind her name. My name."

Ultimately the answer had lie within Shiori all along, in the name she gave him. The one thing that kept them apart had been what brought them back together in the end.

"I'm going to end him." The promise sends a chill down Midorima's spine. A divine retribution if there were any, Akashi had taken everything his father ever taught him and used it to wrought hell on him. "I just need to be patient as you've said. A royal benefactor would come in handy about now."

If he succeeds, this may change everything. There would be no divide between them, paramours no longer. Midorima is hopeful to the point he has to reign himself in from being too excitable. It's the thought of how Akashi won't benefit from more pressure that calms him. "When we win, will this mean what I think it does?"

"Yes." Akashi smiles, lacing their hands together and says once more, "Yes."

 

 

* * *

 

 

Midorima ends up staying for dinner if only to drag a few anecdotes of weekends in Kyoto and cajole him into consuming more than the side dish of agedashi tofu. Akashi does not deny him the satisfaction of either although he continues to claim Mibuchi, the resident tour guide of the regulars' shenanigans would provide better tales in comparison and demands restitution.

He does, making do with a colorful array of pineapples mostly provoked by hawk eyes, making Akashi look on fondly. "I'm glad Shuutoku has been a fine fit for you. I was worried you would do nothing but eat and breathe basketball."

"Though don't we all?" Midorima lifts the napkin from his lap. "Each of us were cut from the same cloth."

"No one can argue with you when you put it like that."

There's the alert of the evening commute to depart on Midorima's cell. "The last line back is in twenty. I have to go but this isn't goodbye."

Akashi doesn't know when did he get so easy to read. In truth he hasn't. It's only that spending hours with Midorima after depriving himself of human connection for extensive periods guarantees some kind of withdrawal, one he isn't exactly looking forward to.

"I know," Akashi says, guiding them to the front of the house, aware he's being silly. "You made today bearable."

"Just bearable?" Teased Midorima.

Two can play that game. Akashi amends, "You made it perfect."

It comes out more earnest than sly. Akashi probably has low standards if waking up wasted then crying his heart out before having tea plotting a man's demise constitutes a perfect day for him, but he couldn't care less, especially not when Midorima's jaw is snapped shut, a tint to his cheeks. The color isn't fading though and Akashi hasn't a clue why until Midorima produces the handmade talisman from the folds of his jacket. "I got you something. For luck."

The seams are fine ribbons of jade and gold knotted into an infinity of loops. Akashi has no shame in admitting he will treasure the small charm even when it is in threads. Midorima presses his mouth to his temple and Akashi doesn't bother hiding the hitch of a breath at, "Happy birthday."

 

 

* * *

 

 

Akashi is sixteen and he is free.

 

 

* * *

 

 

There aren't as many stumbling blocks to catching up as Midorima presumed.

It's largely due to their esoteric upbringings for one. Midorima knows he hadn't been raised to the same traditional extent as Akashi and is thankful for it. Yet it is in part of what earned them their commonality, predilections that align somewhat.

More than the intellectual stimulation, Midorima finds it was the emotional familiarity that linked them close, as inimitable as lightning in a bottle.

Akashi goes apartment hunting with Murasakibara for some reason despite the boy dwelling in Akita, lured out by the bounty of Tokyo cuisine for every day he is to accompany his former captain. In hindsight Midorima does see the appeal of having a two meter tall giant next to you while dealing with a broker.

One would have thought relocating to the capital of the land of the rising sun was done in increments, but because this is Akashi it's merely another Friday when he secures a three bedroom high rise unit overlooking the bay. The penthouse is something out of a contemporary catalogue, airy and spacious, done in stainless steel appliances and dark countertops with tasteful yet subtle finishes.

When Midorima finds it only a short fifteen minutes walk to Todai, Akashi is innocently sipping apple cider by the breakfast bar. The housewarming party should have been harmless had Akashi not invited their ragtag group of uncouth charlatans into the premises, having made a mess of the common area.

At least Kagami had cooked, inspiring a welcome air of domestication and for that he'd been awarded a guestroom alongside his shadow, although Akashi should probably have the cleaners sterilize it once they're gone. Kise had taken the couch for he had a shoot at some ungodly hour tomorrow and did not want to face Murasakibara's wrath at being roused ahead of time, leaving a mildly well behaved if shit faced Aomine to bunk with the center after throwing out the spare futon in the model's direction.

"Kise Ryouta is not a consolation prize," warns Midorima as he lends the ace an extra toothbrush. 

It's unplanned, he didn't know what came over him and yet Aomine only blinked before nodding at the uncanny display. "Sure thing, mama bear."

He will have to admit he had dug out his own grave with that one. At least the embarrassment is mild rather than tenfold.

"Midorima-cchi..." Kise blubbers from behind him. He'd spoken too soon. "You do care about me!"

It takes Kuroko to mediate the situation, if having a blond leech glomp him may be called such. He's glad that it's over with, able to immerse himself in the quiet once more.

"Aomine and Kise, huh?" Even Akashi found the development rather late by timing despite the man having been pulling the latter's metaphorical pigtails as if no better than a little boy for years. "And all that talk of large breasts?"

"Nothing more than a facade for his latent homosexuality."

"Well good for him I suppose."

They've vacated the halls into the master bedroom for some time now. Akashi's fresh out of the showers in a thin flannel shirt and boxers when Midorima is staring at the instrument case with interest where he should be reading. "Do you still play often?"

"More or less." Akashi towels his hair, evening the strands where they hike. "Reo enjoys being serenaded and won't take no for an answer when I said I'm rusty."

"I take it you're spoiling him." Midorima is internally laughing at his misfortune. But it isn't so much a misfortune when Akashi also found it cathartic. His mother had left him with three gifts when she passed. Basketball, music and Yukimaru. Between a grown stallion and a string instrument, it's obvious which of the two he could bring into his new lodgings. It helped his anxiety that the realtor said children loved ponies and Akashi had personally interviewed the latest team of groundskeeper.

"Reo demands spoiling from everyone. Didn't he ask you for those rolling pencils the week before his college entrance exams?"

"I will neither confirm nor deny," Midorima imparts loftily. He hasn't heard Akashi play for all of sophomore year though that he adds, "Well rusty or not, I'd like to hear you sometime if you don't mind."

A lullaby comes to him and he reaches for the Stradivarius before he knows it. "What about now?"

Midorima bookmarks his chemistry notes, placing them on the dresser as Akashi settles on the foot of the bed, poised for the first note. "Might as well test if the walls are soundproof."

Akashi closes his eyes and a galaxy blooms.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The first time Midorima hears the word prodigy, he was nearly asleep on his father's back when he logged out of his office.

It had been whispered among a herd of nurses off shift by the oncology ward, complaining if only their usual volunteers weren't tuneless musicians but rather the little boy holding a private concert for his mother.

Of course he has no idea what the word means or that of the boy.

Yet eight years later, he isn't missing out.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Midorima listens.

There's beauty in adversity, they say. A misshapen alloy may transform into the most prized of swords when forged in fire. But one shouldn't seek beauty from pain alone.

The melody is seasons woven to sound. It catapults him to the blinding lights of Teikou before a rain of cherry blossoms, a drowsy murmur by his ear and black and white keys. The spring he learned how to love a living thing.

The spring I met you, Midorima thinks.

Until Midorima played it for him, Akashi steered far from the song. In fact he anticipates blinking to the view of a hospital room, the metallic smell of blood and disinfectant almost like muscle memory to him. But time gave it new meaning and when Akashi opens his eyes at the last crescendo he feels no fear.

Midorima watches Akashi lower his bow, peeling the violin away from his chin. He's fiddling with something in his pocket. Midorima finds his hand being pried open and closed, feeling cold metal as he received the object, uncoiling his fist to find a spare key.

Only Akashi is silent, tongue turned to lead for the first time in his life.

"Akashi, you've never had a problem with being too forward with me. Don't start now."

"I'm not asking you to move in with me," says the person asking him to move in with him. Akashi seems conscious he's contradicting himself and revises, "I don't mean now. Maybe next year if you want to? And I might not be here that often anyway at least not until we graduate."

Midorima knows all that. He's even known about the laundry list of issues that come with cohabitation. But as long as it's with Akashi, Midorima wants all of them.

Midorima only repeats his earlier inspection of, "Todai's nearby."

"That too," Akashi mumbles.

"Well when you put it like that..." Midorima strokes the back of his neck. "How can I refuse?"

 

 

* * *

 

 

"The world waits for no one and the weak are left behind," says Akashi one day without preamble. Midorima is burrowed on the meat of his thigh and he needed to look up to see his face. He doesn't and maybe that's why Akashi chose to speak. "Strength is the key to growth, mercy is a weakness. Losing..." A breath. "Losing means being bereft of value."

Losing meant he is bereft of value, Akashi knows Midorima will no doubt translate that into in spite of him using third person.

He says, "You know that's not true."

"I do now."

Midorima cranes his head back to see Akashi, unsmiling but untroubled and replies, "Good."

 

 

* * *

 

 

The date of their summon is fast approaching. Midorima sleeps over the whole week leading up to it. Akashi isn't nervous or he isn't until the mishap that occurs halfway through his stay.

Mouths locked together Midorima realizes they're well on their way to fornicating in the pantry, that is until he realizes the friction that drags a groan out of Akashi's throat is one of frustration rather than arousal and that he isn't even hard. "Maybe not tonight? We both have a long day ahead of us tomorrow."

There's early practice for the Interhigh qualifiers for both Rakuzan and Shuutoku. Akashi has also offhandedly mentioned a meeting with one Kagami Dazai. 

Midorima finds his lips occupied once more but while Akashi would normally drive a hard bargain with his hot palm on his crotch, he was also currently kissing like his life depended on it which it shouldn't. Midorima pulls him back by the shoulders. "Okay. What's wrong?"

"Why is this happening?" Mutters Akashi, glaring at the difference between their lower regions.

"Sometimes the medication result in side effects such as erectile dysfunction," supplies Midorima. "We can get you a new prescription if it bothers you that much. Don't overthink it."

Akashi declines the notion instantly. "That's not it. And just because I can't get off doesn't mean you should too."

"Please don't force yourself for my sake." Midorima gently retracted the hands from unbuckling his belt. "I'm good, really. It'll go down in a minute."

While Akashi agrees without further debate, it doesn't escape Midorima that he takes it as a personal failure. When the lights are off he tells him again, "Akashi, it's okay."

It is a kindness when Midorima recognizes his breathing pattern to be that of him awake, but doesn't call him out when there is no answer and Akashi curls in on himself.

 

 

* * *

 

 

In a trimmed suit sans tie Akashi looks every bit the scion he is, exuding magnetism. Midorima had dressed appropriately in a button down, navy slacks and Italian loafers. Akashi is quiet but his morale seems to be well enough with what the light small talk they manage during the cab ride.

They pull into the mouth of the massive compound framed by raised flags bearing the royal emblem, pennants high enough to touch the sky. Halted at the border's security post, Akashi merely rolls down the window, voicelessly presenting a missive with the imperial sigil.

It's enough to turn the sentry understandably cross, he probably hasn't had the time for jokes this early in the morning that he activates his earpiece to reconfirm with someone among his convoy if they were indeed expecting to entertain a house guest on a sabbatical, one who was probably carrying a forgery. Except he's answered with the affirmative that he reluctantly inspects the notice.

Upon noting it's genuine, he bluntly inquires, "Name?"

The boy smiles thinly. "Akashi Seijuurou."

"Sir!" The man scrambles to salute the young prince. "A thousand pardons-"

"It's no matter," assures Akashi, his word gospel, preventing the man from going into respiratory failure. Midorima is faintly amused at their taxi driver who's eyeing the rear of the car from the side mirror as if flung into a twilight zone of sorts, finally realizing just whom the passenger he had at his backseat was. 

He insists, "I'll call for the attendants, it will only be a moment-"

Akashi winces as if nursing a migraine at the offer of being hoisted on a palanquin like some artifact. "Please don't. I have no need for them. Just let us pass if you will."

The man bows. "Of course, your highness."

An appreciative nod from Akashi and they enter the grounds. He seems contemplative as they drove into the sunlit terrain and it's a vast change considering last night Akashi had been the closest thing to jittery that Midorima does the same, pleased to allow him his space.

The view is splendid, a shore walk of boardwalks and courtyards interspersed between a vista of water and willow trees, the reflective surface no different than the dewy blue of the clouds.

He feels like an interloper traversing these lands, unable to turn away from every microscopic detail its decadence has to offer, be it the chorus of swans among lotus flowers floating in the frothy embrace of the river bank or the sway of the wisteria and laburnum vines, iridescent in the horizon.

He turns to Akashi, whose eyes are entranced on him instead. "Fancy a walk?"

Midorima isn't about to say no to that. "I do."

Akashi hands the cabbie their fare, still somewhat stupefied at the exchange as they exit. "Keep the change."

When their mode of transport finally takes its leave, Midorima says, "I think you broke him."

Akashi chuckles at the comment. "If my memory serves right, there's a nice shortcut to the main building."

"I'll follow your lead then." Midorima finds out what Akashi meant by shortcut is a path of amarantine blossoms heading towards the edge of the lawn where a moat met grass, bridged by double arches extending into the village plaza.

They reach the castle, greeted by the vanguard. It's a congregation of men, their uniforms heavy with decoration. They spared two, the rest bowing low and turning to leave for patrol.

They climb a gold veined staircase that mostly reminds Midorima of polished kintsugi. The interior is exquisite, boasting all the grandeur of a dynasty, its entrance hall alone enough to facilitate a banquet. Spherical lights hung from the ceiling of textured murals like small glass moons. 

Akashi does not look the least bit out of place, without the careful innocence of a stranger. Midorima has it in abundance, if recalling the image of their escorts addressing his companion with the veneration one would harbor for gods in the form of men.

Midorima realizes this place, this life is Akashi's birthright. Most men would do a number of things to obtain such a station, to be close to it. Masaomi clearly had.

Yet the opulence only stirs Akashi by way of discomfort, as if breathing in the noxious fumes that came with the shackles of duty. It's reasonable given how he was raised with all the pressures of a crown and none of its merits.

Akashi wanted none of it. Akashi wanted him, wanted a future that was wholly theirs. The revelation stuns him, white noise meting a sentence that felt a lot like the sensation of pins and needles.

For once Akashi isn't attuned to Midorima's apparent epiphany, stuck waging his own war against the hive swarm of aspersions his own mind casts at him. When he breathes, shallow, Midorima longs for nothing more than to touch him. He does, albeit the point of contact they can afford within reason. His fingertips are searing as Akashi's own slip into them. "Are you ready?"

This. This is the only thing Akashi desired at the moment, brought back to reality. The faith in those verdant eyes grips him and Akashi exhales. "I am with you."

It's true. Akashi has nothing but Midorima to lose and he has no plan of ever intentionally letting that landscape of ruin come to be. The throne may faze him, of that he is willing to admit, but it did not scare him.

Their unsolicited visit is announced by the chamberlain. A handful of the parliament were present in the drawing room, seated in seiza before the dais. The administration departs after the instruction, giving Akashi a wide berth as they filtered out the doors.

"Uncle." Akashi bows at the waist and Midorima greets the sovereign in a similar manner, only silently. "Thank you for receiving us. I understand your time is indispensable. I hope you are well. As are Empress Keiko, Matsu and Hiyori."

The emperor descends the platform, thick robes fanning around him. They are however worn without obstruction by one Akashi Hajime, a ruler who would forgo his ceremonial headdress in the place of a more than sufficient heirloom in the form of a ring that bore the imperial crest. He seems to favor efficiency over obsolete customs, oddly approachable for someone so exalted. 

Those eyes tell a different story however, cutting sharp and wolfish in its authority. Midorima knows for certain then that he stands before the crown, an arbitrator and a guillotine in one. If there is anyone who can bring Masaomi to his knees, dole out a smear campaign on every tabloid and televised news outlet or right away convict him with none of the bureaucracy it would be this man.

"Seijuurou, you can cease the formalities. I've heard reprisals of the same all morning. I'd be grateful if my nephew were to bid me a hello instead. Like family." The last time Hajime saw the boy he'd been with all the regal bearing of a gregarious child. "Whatever happened to Mat-chan and Yori-chan?" It's a rhetorical, for Hajime now knew of the cruelty Shiori's blood withstood. "Rise."

Akashi agrees. "As you wish, Uncle. I brought a dear friend of mine today."

He takes it as his cue to introduce himself. "Midorima Shintarou, your majesty."

"At ease, Shintarou-kun." There's some distance between them then when Hajime's advisor clears his throat and the emperor takes his perch above the podium. "Refreshments for our guests, Iwao. Do make yourselves at home."

Neither of them move toward the spread laid out before them on the wide low table and a series of throw cushions carted in by a group of attendants at Iwao's behest. Hajime digresses, "Perhaps I ought to follow my own advice and stop mincing words. You've come a long way after all and I have read at length of the information you've sent. I have my preferred methods of dealing with such impiety. Though please do enlighten me of your request, Seijuurou. You may speak freely."

Midorima itches to shield him from this, but he knows his place, remains where he is. Alas Iwao directs him to the side per protocol and Midorima follows, backing away slightly.

Akashi looks at him one final time as if searching for strength, smiles weakly. Then he faces forward, gait stiff and bows. Except this time the angle at which Akashi bends is at that of a lowly servant, no, beneath any existing humane degree in the totem pole as he kneels, prostrating himself with his hands flat in front of him, face trained on the granite.

Midorima almost wishes he could close his eyes.

"I have no right to ask you to officiate matters beyond the members of the court." Despite Akashi feeling as if he's ingested a corrosive substance, his throat stinging, his voice is deceptively steady. "But I've come here to plead just that, knowing I am unworthy." 

Hajime looks on at his estranged nephew. Someone had taught this boy everything to gain came with a price. Taught him in absolutes of power. Taught him nothing and everything. Taught him pain and far too much of it.

"I have nothing to offer you." Akashi swallows, an ache building in the back of his eyes. "I have nothing to offer you but my name." 

It registers to Midorima then what that last gaze meant, the choice Akashi made, chest constricting at the sight of him enacting it. "Revoke it if you would be so kind. You will have my gratitude."

Akashi would like to think maybe all along he is willing to let go of his attachment to his mother to be with Midorima. He would rather be nameless than give them up. He thinks of home, thinks of Midorima's herbal brews occupying his cabinets and the increasing number of hangers with his clothes. He thinks of slow mornings and languid nights, thinks of the lull of his heartbeat, what became his favorite sound to fall asleep to.

No. This is no sacrifice at all.

"You are aware this would strip you of your titles? Of all it would cost you?" Hajime imperceptibly stalked forwards, his nephew seemingly indifferent to the line of questions. "You understand you are essentially asking me to remove you from the line of succession."

"Yes." If possible, Akashi bows even lower.

"You would be willing to cast off your divinity?"

"I am."

"Seijuurou..." Hajime ponders. "What kind of man do you take me for?"

Akashi lifts his head at that. "Pardon?"

Hajime is serious. "Be frank with me."

"I know little of you," admits Akashi. "I know you are my mother's brother."

"Indeed you do," deems Hajime. "Therefore I pity the man who robbed you of that knowledge, who violated the safety that comes with true family."

"Uncle?" Either Akashi had broke formation and failed to repose in submission or Hajime was bowing towards him.

"Nephew, I regret all you were subjected to. But more than that, I regret having remained oblivious for so long when Shiori had entrusted you to me. You are her blood and you will forever be." Guilt is an oil lamp burning the night away, tugging at his insides, extinguished into hatred. Hajime concludes, "As such I cannot grant your request."

Akashi looks pale and wretched. "Uncle, I have nothing else. I beg of you-"

"Seijuurou." There are hands on his shoulders just as the corners of the room were beginning to gray out, shaking ever so gently. "Breathe, Seijuurou."

Akashi breathes. The impeding panic subsides when another pair relieves him of the snug fit of the Brioni. His vision focuses on Midorima next to him, the suit draped over one arm, his other one moving to encase his cold fingers. The two of them are keeping him off the ground.

"Forgive me." Hajime repeats himself, well aware his apology is too little, too late. "Forgive me for doing nothing the past ten years. And forgive me for this very moment. It was not my intention to cause you distress. What I meant to say above all is you needn't plead for such things. It is your due. It always was."

Once Akashi is no longer under the impression of suffering from a punctured windpipe, he asks, "Will you help me overthrow my father?"

A coup won't satiate Hajime, Midorima is right to think. He looks ready for annihilation. Midorima wouldn't be surprised if the man wreaked havoc on the dissolute cretin that is Masaomi.

"Seijuurou." Hajime says, "I will finish him."

 

 

* * *

 

 

It turns out Akashi has a two and a half year old niece, which isn't all that surprising.

What's surprising is how she immediately takes to him, demanding to be carried piggy back across the koi pond for play time. Akashi does her one better, hauling the little rascal to sit on his shoulders. The little girl is making airplane noises as Akashi balances her across the courtyard, listening to her rambling and responding at appropriate intervals. Her parents are obviously pleased at their momentary freedom from their charge signaled by the lax postures they adopted as soon as the infant decided to dominate the attentions of her uncle with the strawberry hair.

Akashi's cousins were both present during brunch which wrapped up a good fifteen minutes ago. Matsu lingers, conversing softly with his wife over hors d'oeuvres while a newly wedded Hiyori and her beau had excused themselves for the spring baths after absconding with their fair share of treats.

This leaves Midorima with Hajime.

"Answers are found when a man confesses his fears to the water."

"Sir?" The emperor had strong armed him out of the your majesties, but a nondescript formal address at the cryptic proverb isn't something that could be helped.

"Today marks a new beginning for Seijuurou despite his long ingrained instincts." Hajime says, "I only would like to make sure his _dear_ friend comprehends the magnitude of what a boy otherwise groomed for responsibility almost renounced for him."

"You misunderstand," Midorima reasons, only to be met by the man's impressively raised eyebrow that is entirely an Akashi trait he is led to concur. He sighs. "I apologize. I'd be a fool to lie to you. As for what happened before your throne believe me I know of its significance better than anyone. I can assure you my every intention aligns with his well being. I will never betray him."

Hajime observes him quietly before shaking his head. "Youthful devotion still astounds me." Midorima knows he needs to tread carefully, tension stiffening his spine that the man takes pity on him. "Hush your wary thoughts, Shintarou-kun. I know you won't let him jeopardize his future. I saw how Iwao had to practically restrain you. Why is it that every time I aim to impart some wisdom to your generation you all end up ready to sell your soul to me? I was just trying to give you... What's the name of that speech my son received from his in laws before he courted Fumiya-chan?" It comes to mind at last. "Ah, the shovel talk."

Midorima blinks at the use of colloquial then sees the man eyeing the empty pot forlornly. It's unlikely their tea master would return on such short notice that he automatically offers, "Sir, if you'll let me."

Hajime lets him take siege of the station with interest. Midorima rolls up his sleeves, starts on the hot coals and mixes another brew with proficient movements. Hajime blows the steam off of his perfectly served cup, takes a tentative sip. He immediately drinks more, careful not to scald his tongue and praises, "Excellent work. You could give Ono-kun a run for his money."

"You flatter me, sir." The tea might be good thanks to his leftover childhood training, but Midorima could hardly hold a candle to a certified professional whose bread and butter had been the art. And onto more pressing matters... "You don't disapprove?"

"Of you and my nephew?" Hajime lets the question stew for a moment. "There may be an era where the people's prejudice may rule us all, fortunately such a time has long expired. Don't get me wrong, unions of stratified blood is still the key to strengthen one's reign. It's practically a trade secret in preserving monarchies I'm afraid."

Hajime had elaborated the practice with evident disgust that Midorima assumed, "Forgive me if I'm being presumptuous but I take it you care little for this philosophy."

"How could I not when it nearly cost me my own kin?" Retorted Hajime. "Were you ever briefed on the circumstances of how Seijuurou came to be fourth in line?"

Midorima answers, "I was informed the same as the masses of your sister in law being unable to bear child."

"The lies they feed common folk." More than anything the chortle that escapes Hajime reminds Midorima he is no more than flesh and blood just as anyone else. "People do realize one must be pregnant in order to suffer miscarriages, don't they?"

A conspiracy is unfolding before Midorima's eyes. "The prince and his consort were never expecting?"

"The only thing my brother expected was the arrival of his own dear friend each monsoon. Like Seijuurou and you, he prefers the company of men." Hajime explains, "I respect my father, rest his soul, but I cannot for the life of me lead by his example. He's a rather firm believer of honor and all the stagnated ideals attached to it. It's all shame under the rug to him. He thought that by forcing Ishida to take on a wife he would be cured of his depravity."

"Else he be removed from the family tree," finishes Midorima.

"You caught on quick, Shintarou-kun." Hajime laughs. "My brother isn't one to raise dispute over such trivial things like dowries, lands and titles. Nor is he one to begrudge his beloved being called a dalliance. He told me he's thankful he isn't the heir, eloped and set course on a voyage across the globe. He disowned our father who ended up never seeing him again even on his deathbed. I wouldn't get to hear from him for over a decade if it weren't for Shiori. She was something of a soft spot for both of us."

Midorima apologizes, "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," assures Hajime. "I wrote to him as soon as my coronation ended. The currency took a dip when I reinstated his position in court, if in anything but name. His travels have made him detest palace life however not that I could blame him. We found a compromise. Today Ishida very much enjoys being an envoy. Diplomacy has always been his strong suit. You were right to worry about Seijuurou. Had I been my father I would have easily cast him out."

Midorima remembers the day his own father realized his preferences lied within the same gender. Tadashi had ushered him into a long talk that did not belie his profession with all the care that have gone into it. Of all the consequences and the stigma. Of his pride and complete acceptance. Of how unjustifiably loved he will always be.

He recalls his father's words. "Our bonds remain the only legacy we leave behind in our lives. It is fundamentally human to want for love. It is no sin. A man who fails to understand that is no man at all."

"Well put," agrees Hajime. "One could learn a thing or two from whoever raised you, Shintarou-kun."

Midorima admits, "I got lucky. They taught me well."

"In any case I wish to teach my children the same." Hajime says, "My nephew is as embittered as he is complicated. I do not envy his trials. He deserves better. At any rate I'd like to help give him just that. If it's perhaps a chance to vicariously fix what could never be for my brother, I'm glad it's a state secret."

"Permission to speak freely, sir?" Midorima is met by a nod. "I don't think you failed him at all. You were brave in all the ways the late emperor never was. You gave him a place to come home."

It's easy to decide at this point. "Few are worthy of an Akashi. I hope you are aware of that, Shintarou-kun."

"I am."

His nephew is good with his granddaughter if the giggles across the waterhole were any indication. Hajime acknowledges this determined young man eyeing the sight of them with undisguised softness will make a fine suitor for him. "If Seijuurou trusts you with his heart, so will I."

He does not fluster at that. "I'm honored, sir."

In all seriousness Hajime remarks, "There is something that's come to my attention. He would be a formidable enemy should he ever have designs on a throne."

Midorima replies fondly, "Don't I know it."

 

 

* * *

 

 

They leave the estate by noon, Hajime following them as far out as the gates. He doesn't seem all that concerned with his robes skirting the dirt on the pavement or that of the sheen of his face, wiping at it with a sleeve. 

"Akashi Seijuurou." His uncle's hand may as well be smoldering on his shoulder. "You are a son of heaven. Nothing done unto you will ever tarnish your name. Remember that when you remember nothing else."

This is the closest to salvation he'll ever be that he nods in grateful silence. Midorima watches their goodbye, a spectrum of emotions washing over Akashi then nothing at all.

 

 

* * *

 

 

With the hectic schedules they both adopt their senior year Midorima puts that particular exchange as well as the questions that came with it on the back burner.

He would like to say he's domesticated Akashi with sharing a routine for nearly a semester but there's still the occasional towels on the floor and the need to replace their disposal due to the coffee grounds that clogged it. It isn't a repetitive issue at least with Akashi being more than agreeable to taking up habits supportive of independent living and Midorima more than evens it out by having more than a few of his own ticks the redhead has kindly accommodated such as religiously abiding by television programs which may have switched times to as early as the crack of dawn.

"You watch Oha Asa less these days," observes Akashi over miso soup.

Midorima's own sustenance lacks no nutritional value. It's something he has yet to succeed enticing Akashi into having though not for lack of trying. "I listen to the radio reruns in the shower."

"Will you be safe on the road without your lucky item?" The inquiry is playful no doubt.

Truthfully it is no real peril obtaining his token later in the day, in fact there are times when he forgets his past insistence on never getting out the door unless he were equipped with whatever his horoscope was assigned.

"Cancers are ranked first today. I am wearing striped socks to ensure my fortune." While Midorima would normally be smug over the fact, he is currently frowning, the next bit being why, "On the other hand Sagittarius is in last place."

Akashi consumes the last of his broth. "Save me some lucky socks then."

"It doesn't work like that," points out Midorima, belatedly recognizing Akashi is messing with him as usual. "I know you're busy with Dazai and your uncle. But you rarely look rested these days." If these are the hours Akashi keeps before his election into the company, Midorima can't help but imagine how late he'll stay up afterwards. "Perhaps you may take advantage of further delegation?"

"I can't. The trial's close. There's no one else trustworthy." There are bags under Akashi's eyes. They aren't dark enough to warrant staging an intervention, but at this rate they will be. "Besides sleep is for the weak."

Okay. Maybe an intervention is in order.

Akashi notices the look Midorima is giving him and corrects himself, "I'm kidding."

Midorima doesn't think he is. "Akashi, I know you don't want me to worry about you."

"But you do," says Akashi, guilty. "I'm fine, Midorima. This will all be over soon."

Midorima takes his word for it, gradually coming up behind him by the dishes and asks, "Anything I can do to help?"

Despite it being anything but sudden and far from the first time they've been in said position, back flushed against Midorima's chest Akashi drops the bowl he's rinsing into the sink, not from a slope in coordination related to wakefulness, but from the alarm of being startled. It shatters. The sound of it is enough to carry through the entire condo.

Midorima immediately clears his direct vicinity at the reaction. A few seconds later Akashi finally moves to clean the pieces from the basin. "Slow down. You're going to cut yourself doing that. Use a cloth at least."

"Okay," is Akashi's monosyllabic assent.

The mess is gone, Akashi's hands are unscathed, but the weight of its creation indented a crater in the room. Midorima has the remorseless acumen of someone who knows him too well. A lesser partner would bother with euphemisms, but Midorima cuts into the thick of it. "There's something wrong you aren't telling me."

It's not an accusation when he has a lie ready at the tip of his tongue.

"Akashi, say something."

"I can't." The court procession is in less than two weeks and Akashi still held hope that Midorima will emerge unaware of the full extent of the charges pressed against Masaomi. It's surely diminished by now, all but wishful thinking. Akashi has no right to be short with him, but it's exactly how he responds. "I'm late. Rakuzan expects me by ten."

In retrospect it's a sloppy excuse and a slight to Midorima's intellect. Akashi who has been attending campus on a part time basis, who is top of his year's graduating class should have some control over the hours of a club he's captaining.

"You promised," Midorima calls out just as Akashi brushes past him. "No more lying. No more leaving."

Akashi has his back to him, although the line of those shoulders are slanted in exhaustion. Inherently he knows Midorima is right. This isn't how a relationship should be, raw and tumultuous, with the occasional pockets of happiness. It still does not change anything.

"I'm sorry," he says and walks away.

It feels a lot like running.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Akashi shouldn't have been surprised when upon returning to the apartment a note is waiting for him by the kitchen, pinned onto the refrigerator by a magnet.

In meticulous lettering it reads,

_Akashi,_

_There's takeout in the microwave. It's for you._

_I'll be staying at the house for a few days._

_Kaori is getting her wisdom tooth removed and she won't go to the dentist appointment without me._

_She'll be missing school tomorrow. My mother does not wish to deal with her fussiness alone._

_I'm not leaving you. Don't ever think I will._

_But maybe we can both benefit from some time apart for now._

_In the meantime please take care of yourself._

 

 

* * *

 

 

Once, he had forgotten what happiness felt like. Then his time with Midorima brought it back, a rebirth of ever present content, different and foreign yet no less fulfilling.

Akashi grew sated and spoiled.

He remembers how cold the bed could be that night without another person lying next to him, the familiar foray of loneliness settling in with him instead as comfortably as an old friend.

It is hardly a new discovery.

 

 

* * *

 

 

By the end of the week he doesn't so much as toss and turn, his tired muscles only allowing him to stare numbly at the ceiling while he waits for the sun to rise, finding it heavy to breathe. It's strange how time passes in these hours, slow and viscous as melting wax.

His voice is dull as Akashi mutters hazily to himself, "Remember that when you remember nothing else."

 

 

* * *

 

 

It's four in the morning when the e-mail arrives in Midorima's inbox.

At the exact time of the notification the battery on his phone had died and he'd been fast asleep.

A little past eight he learns of its existence by his old desktop after replying to Shuutoku's career advisor.

It's Akashi. The message is brief and more affecting than it could ever be.

_I owe you the truth._

_This is the last of it._

_I couldn't tell you._

_It isn't because you don't matter to me._

_It's because you do._

_I don't want to lose you._

There's a video attached.

He presses play.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Midorima is of the theory that Akashi may have been born a nymph in another time, if his ability to shoot come hither looks for the duration of Rakuzan and Shuutoku's joint training camp their junior year by the beaches of Fukuoka served any reminders.

It culminated in what was supposed to be a rejuvenating retreat at the hot springs. Takao had all but stolen his armaments, night cap and pajamas hidden somewhere he'd never find lest he dealt with the belligerent sexual tension capsizing their practice matches in their rival's favor. "Come on, Shin-chan! If Akashi's playing dirty then so can you. Seduce the shit out of him, it's only fair."

It takes Midorima all of his willpower not to chuck the condom at the point guard's face. "Takao! What is the meaning of this?"

"I'm enabling you, cherry boy." The dark haired player was far too excited on his behalf. "Shin-chan is going to get laid in an onsen, I'm so proud!"

"Nobody is getting laid, fool." He'd hate to litter that he slipped the protection into the folds of his towel by the bedrock. "And be quiet."

"Relax, Shin-chan. Everyone's having a stupid contest on who can last longest in the sauna."

"That is stupid," agrees Midorima. "Why aren't you partaking?"

"Hey! Don't make fun of me, Shin-chan." Takao is grinning despite his protest. "You tongue in cheek, you."

"Predictably you were about to join them as soon as you made sure I won't flee from Akashi."

"Alright, go figure. I like saunas. They're a luxury for peasants, Shin-chan." Takao slips on his broad shorts, hastily exiting the baths with a splash just as his hawk eye spotted a flash of red by the revolving doors of the spa but not before announcing, loud and clear, "Anyway... The only place you should be putting your tongue is in between his cheeks."

The individual in question is in hearing proximity for the last bit, that much is for certain that Midorima sinks lower into the water.

"Do I want to know why your friend just alluded to you performing anilingus?" Akashi asks a respectable distance from him, mostly amused.

He draws himself upright and answers, "He's under the impression I should be having relations. Scandalous, possibly voyeuristic relations. With you."

Akashi chuckles. "That's a flattering picture, if experimental."

"I would have defended your honor had the opportunity presented itself. Overzealous as he may be Takao means no harm, I assure you. He would not have spoken so crassly had he known of your lineage."

"I'm not worried. It's rather kind and open minded of him to encourage you," says Akashi. "And my lineage means nothing in that sense. I've sullied the covenant. I'm not as pure as you think I am."

He would have adjusted his glasses had they remained intact. "The old ways were always rather oversimplified. True purity has nothing to do with the body. It is of the soul."

"I'm glad you think so," says Akashi, inching closer with a small smile. "It happened once while we weren't together. I didn't know him well. I wasn't very selective then and I regret it."

"I don't judge you." Midorima admits, "Rather I would appreciate any reference you have. What you like, what you're comfortable with. Tell me what you want."

"I wanted you to be my first." How maudlin. The heat must be getting to him. "Just so you know... If I could rewind time, I would have chosen you."

"I know," says Midorima. "Can I kiss you?"

The request has no right to be this touching but Akashi laughs, uncaring of how misty eyed it got him. "Yes, please."

 

 

* * *

 

 

It's a surveillance tape nineteen minutes in length. The security feed of a first class hotel suite is vastly superior to that of a hole in the wall convenience store's grainy pixels and distorted audio.

The timestamp at the corner of the screen is Teikou, third year. It's too easy to pinpoint when with the date being just one off from Akashi sporting two different eye colors.

There's something not quite right with the image in front of him. Unless Masaomi had somehow nurtured a semblance of paternal affection, that could not be him assisting half of his son's weight to bed.

It's another red flag when the man leaves him there flat on his back on the mattress. Akashi is too dazed to be just drunk when rolling over has him shivering, incapable of dialogue, about to be sick.

Then comes the moment Midorima realizes he's actually drugged out of his mind, the moment another person enters the room. The angle obstructs the visitor's identity, but he's dressed to the nines, the chronograph model he lays out on the dresser an obvious display of wealth. He's tall with a good forty pounds over the fourteen year old. He takes a long look at the incoherent boy as if he were artistically rendered for public consumption, loosens his tie. His movements are practiced with age, accompanied by the unmistakable click of a belt, the drag of a zipper. He climbs onto the bed, climbs on top of Akashi.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out what's happening.

Akashi whimpers at the brutish strength with which he is held down and stripped with. The lean muscle he carried, rich with rehearsal has no purpose fending off the assault with the fog in his brain. The man, virile and debauched, pays no heed to the fact that Akashi is unable to articulate consent, let alone put a stop to the encounter regardless of his wishes as he is unclothed and bent in half, flesh for the taking.

Midorima wants to kill this bastard.

The sudden urge to be violently ill passes when the keening noises of struggle Akashi had been emitting dwindles into nothing and he gives up on shoving, stares half lidded into the headboard instead, gone elsewhere, removed from the perversion happening to him, no longer choking back on tears at the continuous violation, thrusts that take and take and take, taking Midorima's breath along with it.

This is Akashi, completely and utterly powerless. This is Akashi, his virginity being ripped from him. This is Akashi, the light dying from his eyes, a smothered flame.

And while he may not be conscious by the end of it, there is no part of him left spared.

To think Midorima had asked to see this.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Akashi has either achieved ultimate sainthood or been brought low by how unbearably alone he feels at times that when Kise asks him for his seat number abroad the bullet train back to Tokyo, no doubt having intended to join him from the Kanagawa stop, he grants him said information, all but books them a private cabin the evening prior and even saves up on provision halfway through the trip, making sure there are enough tea leaves for several more servings in his thermos. The more likely explanation is the latter since there's hardly a dent in his expression even when Kise's mile a minute chatter threatens to give him a headache.

At least the explosive one-on-one Kise is currently reanimating complete with sound effects allows him to conduct indirect reconnaissance. It seems Touou's ace had gotten even better if it were possible. Not even Kise's rose tinted glasses of infatuation could have fabricated that if the clip Kuroko somehow recorded from the other side of the court, all the while avoiding being hit by the rebounds succeeding blocked formless shots was any proof. It's a rather humorous take on dodge ball for the shadow.

For all of Kise's attention to detail, Akashi inspects, "You've neglected to mention what a close game it was."

"I still lost," Kise says, without a hint of envy. "I can't even feel bad about it. Not when I'm this happy that Aomine-cchi's finally growing up."

That and Momoi had once texted Akashi on the flammability of idol photo books and what one should do for maximum restoration in the foreseeable event such a collectible happened to catch fire. Akashi gathered the Touou bunch tag teamed their star player using unconventional means, if dangling his other pastime from his reach had been their primary tool.

"Your ability to recognize your opponent's strengths has given you a better eye on overcoming situations. I've always admired that about you, Kise."

One thing Akashi has always known about Kise Ryouta is that he has the tendency to find certain compliments repellent especially should they be disingenuous or those of the superficial fixation most smitten with him across the lens of a camera are known for.

Being told he's grown a long way in a sport he loves to the point of having risked an injury for however is akin to facing a dog with a bone for all his reaction. It's as if Akashi had awarded him a Fields Medal or doted on him the way a mother would her firstborn.

"Akashi-cchi..." Who knew the optical illusion of flowers and sparkles behind Kise could be so potent? "I really miss having you as a captain. I know Teikou wasn't what it cut out to be, but it wasn't half bad, right?"

"I'd beg to differ. I hardly think it was bad at all." Save for the third championships that was due largely to his madness, which Kise kindly did not mention. "We did get to meet each other."

Kise sniffs. "Akashi-cchi, you're going to make me cry if you say stuff like that."

Akashi merely replies, "I heard that particular brand of cosmetics you were signed by was waterproof. Perhaps it is time to see if it's a worthy endorsement."

"You're horrible!" Kise exclaims through laughter. "Besides that campaign won't air until next year." If a bit late he arrives to the realization of, "You've been keeping tabs on me. That's really sweet."

Akashi tells him, "I'm pretty sure it's just common decency to know what your old teammates are up to especially if they're about to make headlines."

"Well then, I like Akashi-cchi all decent like this," says Kise shamelessly before fully absorbing the possible undertone of his statement. "Not that I've ever disliked you or anything really I-"

"Kise." Akashi pacifies the blond with little else than his smile. "It's alright. I get it. I was the furthest thing from good company for quite a while. Thank you for being patient with me. It means a lot that despite the great deal of turmoil I've caused, you still desire to be friends."

Kise's features turn serious, a stark change from his regular countenance. Had Akashi saw him as someone incapable of such a look, the shift would have caught him unawares. "Maybe if I was a better friend to you I would have the right to ask, but I'm not. Since I'm not anyway, I figured I should just toss caution to the wind."

Another respectable quality of Kise's. For all his cleverly hidden insecurity, he knows when to demand no less than what he should earn. "You were as good a friend as any person could be, Kise."

With a regretful frown Kise asks, "Akashi-cchi, did someone hurt you?"

Why is that so difficult to answer? It takes him a moment before he could admit, "I suppose you could say that."

"I often thought about what it was that caused you to switch personalities when Murasakibara-cchi challenged you. There must have been something from before. A whole lot of somethings. I didn't feel like asking Midorima-cchi even though he was the one who knew you best because it seemed like he was also pretty lost on what to do when you left."

"I didn't mean to leave any of you." But you did. You lost it. You lost it and you took it out on everyone.

"I know. We all do. It's okay. We all have our mistakes." Kise's voice sounds as if it were underwater for some reason and rather than hear those words Akashi has to read them from his lips. "Akashi-cchi?"

It isn't asthma. This is exactly like the time in his uncle's throne room. A wraith of static like masses permeates his sight and particles of sand fill the air in his chest cavity. Why is this a problem? This shouldn't be a problem. Akashi is as good as a collection of neuroses, better taken in small doses or none at all, why should anyone bother with him? He got fucked and he couldn't get over it even with Midorima in front of him. No wonder he left. God, Midorima left. Was he coming back? He promised he would come back, didn't he?

"Akashi-cchi, I'll call Midorima-cchi okay?" At least he isn't too slow to spell out Kise's offer. Akashi shakes his head so hard, he gets a minor whiplash.

"No." It's the first word he manages and was that even him? Now he knows what a stutter and a wail combined would be like.

"Okay." Kise is rubbing slow circles on his elbow. "I wanted to get some barbecued ribs in Roppongi if I could squeeze some time in after the shoot. That street always smells really good every time I pass through. Did you know the Mori Art Museum has a new trick-art exhibit this month? It looks amazing in the ads, I thought I'd go see it for myself. I hope I can sneak in some of those scones from the candy emporium too. I'm keeping all this a secret from my manager of course since she'd kill me for breaking this lentil diet I'm on. One cheat day per week just isn't enough. Man, I can't believe I'm saying this but I miss meat. You know who I'm starting to sound like? Kagami-cchi. What is a sex line even and what is it for? I mean I'm not posing nude. I'm a model, not a prostitute."

Piece by piece reality began to take form. Akashi could make sense of Kise's itinerary, visualizing each place he listed in technicolor, of the food he planned to indulge in after abstaining from a carnivorous lifestyle and something about nudity? Alright maybe he still isn't all there, but his heart no longer feels like it's going to give out any time soon and his eardrums are working again. He concentrates on his surroundings, learning he's more or less contorted himself into a compact ball, head nearly level with his knees, arms wound together. Kise is kneeling by the floor of their booth, maintaining a firm hand on him, a distinct furrow to his brows.

He's no less concerned upon noting Akashi's return. "Feeling better, Akashi-cchi?"

"Yes. Thank you." Akashi assumes a more dignified stance. The stretch seems to regulate his blood circulation. "How did you do that?"

Intentional or not, Kise helped tremendously. Akashi is willing to bet he had some elemental grasp on what he was doing. "It was nothing. Just some grounding techniques Chigusa-san taught my sisters and I."

"You were brilliant," says Akashi.

Kise's grin is beatific yet sheepish. "It was the least I can do after I triggered you by being my nosy self."

Akashi acknowledges, "Your questions stemmed from good intentions."

"I'm lucky Akashi-cchi has always been a means to an end type. Now I don't mean to pry but," Kise pauses before deciding against it. "Do you often have panic attacks like that?"

Is that what they are called? Finding he has no reason to lie to him, Akashi says, "This would be the second one in recent memory I believe."

"It must be scary. Mayuri-cchi told me it felt like having the roof collapse on her shoulders. My mother confused it for a nervous breakdown at first."

Mayuri being the eldest of the Kise siblings, Akashi arranged the narrative in context. "Your sister experiences these... attacks?"

"She did for some time. These days she's much better."

"I'm glad."

"Me too," says Kise. "For a while we were pretty worried."

"May I ask what caused her to experience such anxiety?"

Kise hummed an agreement. "There was this big shot photographer. Pervert was hitting on her on the job and she turned him down. Long story short he harassed her for nearly six months. Sent creepy stuff to her apartment, the whole nine yards. She moved back into the house because of him. She almost quit modelling too. Thankfully we were able to issue a restraining order before it got ugly."

That would be indeed unfortunate if it were come to pass. Kise Mayuri was a radiant beauty among the industry, with bosoms nearly as ample as Momoi's to add to her commercial appeal. While she clearly did not fit his tastes, Akashi knew many a man who would bemoan her departure from the public.

Akashi listened as Kise continued, "Our mom decided the three of us should start seeing a specialist together after Mayuri-cchi told us what happened since I was also in the business and Rukia-cchi has plenty of her own challenges being an airline hostess. Said it was going to be a family effort." A wise decision on the matriarch's part. "Dad was just happy to get us all customized pepper sprays."

"Prudent of him to acquire you such weaponry," compliments Akashi.

"Do you know what's the best thing about making a name for yourself, Akashi-cchi?" Kise smiles. It's the smile Teikou taught them all. "People take your word for it. Even when you throw a fit and punch the son of a bitch for pulling shit."

"That must be some reunion."

"All the agencies blacklisted him. My manager pulled some strings after I went to town on him. She made it look good, made a press release and all."

"A fitting end to a heroic tale." Akashi remarks, "You never cease to amaze me, Kise."

The credit is meaningless to Kise. "I just think nobody should be hurt like that, you know? I know that's life but I hate it. I don't want Akashi-cchi to be hurt ever."

His endearing if plainly spoken reasoning is strangely impactful. "Kise..."

"Akashi-cchi has to know he isn't responsible for his pain, he is only responsible for his healing. And he won't have to work through it by himself because there is help. We're here and all of us want you to be well."

"It isn't often that I feel I'm out of my depth, but you've made me reconsider some things. And I know I will be better for it." Talking to some therapist he barely knows won't help him, especially given the nature of certain matters he isn't allowed to divulge under any circumstances. Still Akashi realizes a number of very important things. He does not want to live in fear. He would rather be vulnerable with someone he desires than be alone and afraid forever. "Thank you."

Kise beams. "Anytime."

 

 

* * *

 

 

Akashi wants to go home.

Akashi wants to let Midorima in.

There is nothing to decide.

 

 

* * *

 

 

When Midorima wordlessly rushes forward from where he'd been waiting possibly for hours on the edge of their bed, Akashi is ready. "No, don't stand. I'm going to join you."

Midorima keeps still as Akashi moves to sit beside him. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have walked out on you."

Akashi smiles. "Shouldn't that be my line? You don't have to be so timid, I can take it."

"Akashi, I-" For once Midorima is at a loss for words. "Tell me- Tell me how to fix this. Tell me what to do."

Akashi understands this must have been what Kise meant by Midorima being lost. The look has quite a bit of a resemblance to a man searching for an oasis in a wasteland, things that could never be found.

"Nothing." While Midorima had expected his answer to be equally heartbreaking, he does not predict the fingers that would claim his own or that of the piercing warmth of the touch. "Just stay. Your presence is enough."

Midorima's absence, while brief had cut through him the way phantom pain would haunt an amputee. It's silent. If Akashi were to look past Midorima and into the skyline, he would see there were no stars tonight, no light beyond the walls of this darkened room. He already feels naked without it.

Everything finally made sense to Midorima. Akashi's all or nothing attitude when it came to physical intimacy, Hajime's equivocal assertion, even all the events dating back to Teikou. It made perfect sense. If this is fate, Midorima would very much like to cast its providence aside. For all fate did was dealt Akashi a hand where his world had ended and began anew without anyone noticing its destruction took place at all.

"There was a gala like any other one," Akashi began. "We were in talks about some venture, another patent my father wanted to manufacture. It ran late for some reason and I grew agitated with the way things were progressing."

He could almost feel the pinprick sensation of gooseflesh, his skin crawling as if exposed by the man's covetous gaze once more. There is a reason he rarely wishes to reflect on the experience. He has never attempted to consciously recall it and he certainly hasn't openly discussed it with any living person. Now he remembered it as vividly as if it were the present. "He handed me a drink, told me to unwind and get some air. I thought no further of it. By the end of the hour I couldn't walk straight. My father followed me to the balcony and thought we should have a chat. Said I needed to capitalize. Capitalize on my sexuality, which for once isn't a problem. That's when I realized..." He has to stop for a few seconds if he didn't want his voice to slip into vacuum. "I realized what was going to happen."

Akashi isn't meeting his eyes, but that's understandable. Had he were however he would discover Midorima is as tangible and steady as an anchor, that he will never turn away from him. It comes as a surprise when Akashi is about to let go, just at the earliest sign of lifting pressure, Midorima holds on to him with a white knuckled grip. The resulting stab of emotion that hits Akashi is brutal, rattling his lungs. It's quite possible this is the closest he's ever been to another human being.

"Satisfy him, Seijuurou." Akashi gave a humorless laugh. It had been three words. And like before, those three words had been worse than the hundreds of thousands of times he's told to bite his tongue and torch his dreams. Never before has he ever felt eradicated of hope. "Then he whored me out." A small snivel escapes him. "You were right. You were right all along. He will never love me."

Child prostitution. With the child in question having been Akashi. Even if it was what held up in court to demand an arrest, Midorima found it revolting that such a clinical term would become the common nominal for something which forcibly redefined the man before him for the rest of his life.

"The rest you saw." Akashi grieves once and for all for everything that was, everything that cannot be. "Then tomorrow came and I was torn in two. I thought better be torn in two than let anyone ever overpower me again. But what I became, there's no justifying that. I was no less of a monster than my father."

"The two of you are nothing alike," was Midorima's instant disagreement. "You are nothing like him, Akashi."

"Are you sure about that?" Akashi asks. "You've forgiven me, that is true. And yes I came clean but I lied. A lie of omission is still a lie. I led you to think that perhaps I do deserve you, that I'm not just playing pretend, then I remember that there is nothing left of me. Not anymore. Everything I wanted to give you so long ago on that roof is gone. He bled me dry."

"You're still here. You're all I want." Midorima says, "Nothing can change that. What he did, whatever happened, none of that makes you less of a person. It makes you more. You're stronger than anyone I've ever known. There is nothing on this earth you cannot move forward from. And I will be with you for every moment of it."

Akashi stares at him brokenly. "Why?"

"Because I love you." As soon as Midorima let it out, he cannot believe he's never said those words aloud, and repeats them, each vowel guttural and real. "I love you, Akashi Seijuurou."

Every breath after that felt like a crack in the world. It's true. It was always true and he'd known it too. Akashi shudders at the depth of Midorima's eyes and empties himself. "I love you, too."

 

 

* * *

 

 

When Akashi falls asleep in the crook of his neck that night, Midorima lies awake, becoming all too aware of just how many nights Akashi spent like this, if with his stillness being brought by a wave of memories that render him cold and numb, every flaw an open wound. Midorima has seen him tall in reverence and muted in sadness, yet none of his recollection provided as painful of a reminder as this.

There is a mortal in his arms, one he cannot bear to lose. I lost you once, Midorima remembers and promises them both, "Never again."

However long Akashi may be from healing, one thing is for certain.

He will never be alone.

 

 

* * *

 

 

When Akashi walks past his father before the mallet of a cardinal officer alongside a roomful of security, for all his appearance of betraying no weakness, Midorima could feel him shaking by the minute tremble of his fingertips.

"Seijuurou!" The man in custody retaliates though unable to break free of his chains. "You will pay for this, you insolent cock sucking whelp!"

In another life a bandaged fist would have collided with Masaomi's face hard enough to knock him sideways the moment he finished that sentence, teeth ripping a wound on his lip.

In this one Midorima looks the vile creature of a man dead in the eye, the first and last words he'll ever say to Masaomi being, "If you won't cherish your son then I will."

 

 

* * *

 

 

Their lot of basketball prodigies end up hosting a sleepover of sorts for Kagami's sendoff to America. Or rather Kise did the hosting and Kagami did the cooking, flipping about a large batch of what probably had been two dozen teriyaki burgers that disappeared gradually as the hour went by in the returnee's apartment.

The get-together is a fairly comfortable affair even for Midorima and yes, Kagami's prowess in the kitchen will be missed. It's still incomparable to the athlete himself. None of them comment on how Kuroko hasn't been able to take his eyes off of their chef despite conversing among a group.

As far as mentors go, Kagami Taiga had a great one in Alexandra Garcia. While Seirin did not manage to secure another Winter Cup win they do advance to the finals and take the runner up spot at the Interhigh, coming in second place to Touou. The blonde woman had made frequent trips to view their games often times with a colleague in tow.

The colleague turned out to be a first division NCAA official, who took a shiner to the power forward after seeing the meteor jam. The man also had his eye for Aomine, that is until he realized the boy's grades wouldn't even graze the bar of a top tier college and handed him his name card instead that once he's benefited from the powers of tutoring, he'd be expecting a call after graduation, looking forward to see how things will develop for him then. It's safe to say Momoi has her work cut out for her.

At least Kagami did well enough provisionally to pass most of the conditional requirement in a western curriculum to be immediately recruited. His skills in pictionary however leave much to be desired as the majority of them have learned upon his turn at the game, mostly befuddled on the floor with their futons splayed out by the open plan of the living area. Surely this has been the longest round.

"Is that a carrot?" Kise asks incredulously. Murasakibara gags in disgust at the mention of the vegetable before disinterestedly reaching into his bag of chips.

Akashi hums thoughtfully. Though inartistic a carrot did make a rather likely answer for the block of tangerine and the scratch of olive on top of it. Everyone seems to agree that Kise's guess was as good as anyone's judging by the relative silence.

The imagery which has been bothering Midorima for unknown reasons unveils itself with sinister certitude the moment Kuroko Tetsuya stares into his soul then back at the craftsman's work. Serenely the shadow says, "It's Midorima-kun."

He decided Kagami's childish glee at having his magnum opus deciphered at last would have been pitiful if it didn't come at his expense.

"Wa!" Kise cries. "Kuroko-cchi and Kagami-cchi are so in sync!"

Aomine has been revived from his supposed food coma, folded into his stomach laughing. Murasakibara flicks a chip past the crazed hyena's face who continues to give himself indigestion towards the blond's direction. "Kise-chin, you're being too loud."

Midorima would have opened his mouth to chastise all of them if not for the toothless grin stretching across Akashi's face and instead settles on a benign, "We have terrible friends."

"Really?" Laughter in his eyes Akashi says, "I think we have wonderful ones."

 

 

* * *

 

 

There is a fountain of coffee that works as well as smelling salts to get Kagami to the airport in time. He isn't carrying much with the rest of his luggage being shipped in stages by a courier later. The only one of them capable of misdirection gets as far as the departure hall regardless of lack of papers.

Just before the tunnel Kagami says, "I miss you already."

They all stand by Kuroko when he obscures the single tear that gets the best of him with a sleeve as the plane takes off.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The autumn his acceptance letter to Todai comes in, Midorima finds out how many times in succession he can blush with the celebration dinner his parents insist on having upon the news. Kaori keeps hugging him, then Akashi for no reason at all apart from the fact that it's Akashi and she worships him, which after all this time still has him reaching back for her with something like wide eyed wonder. His family's happiness for him, fierce and proud, wholly unselfish is still a lot to take in.

His mother's hotpot is delicious, although she keeps asking if she had went overboard with the spices in lieu to his complexion. He assures her it isn't the case, that it's probably the thermostat, sheds to the single shirt after his cardigan. Meanwhile his father keeps coughing at the slightest hint of besmirching going on beneath the table but he also seems to be holding back laughs at his feeble excuses.

Akashi has been... adventurous to say the least. Throughout the meal there has been an increasing number of offenses committed to proper decorum. It's subtle ones, downright celibate compared to what most young adults in their community admit to. It does not mean the hand on his thigh isn't producing solar flares for all its worth. His brain shorts circuits for a second when it's Akashi transplanting those trails of electricity shooting down his leg.

Midorima's suspicions are confirmed as they retire for the night. His back is against the door and Akashi mouths a wet stripe down his throat. While the rest may be nostalgic, this is excitingly new. "You're enthusiastic."

"So are you," remarks Akashi.

"Do you blame me?" Midorima asks. "You barely kept your hands to yourself."

"I must confess I've behaved terribly." Akashi has mastered the art of multitasking it seems, if able to unbutton Midorima's front with a role play in mind. "How ever will you punish me, doctor?"

"I won't be that kind of doctor," replies Midorima, faintly amused. It sinks into him that Akashi is trying to have sex with him in his childhood bedroom. While the idea is highly attractive, the escapade also poses plenty of risk, the ultimate one being, "Akashi, my parents are sleeping across the hall."

"You can make sure I'm quiet." The promise and offer in one has no business being this tempting but it is. "I will be patient if you really aren't up for it. After all it took me nearly a month to learn how to dunk just so I could ask you out."

"You..." To think Midorima had been conned into the longest, most dedicated ploy at seduction. "You were interested since that long?"

"I wanted you to do me through a whole row of lockers since I was thirteen." There is a delicate balance in seducing one Midorima Shintarou. Akashi shatters it in one blow. "I may not love you at first sight, but I plan to love you until my last."

Akashi reaches for his frames, displacing it with utmost care. In the semi dark the stunning glow of those irises weighs down his every movement. Midorima is affected by a similar phenomenon, the tilt of his head hesitant as Akashi pulls him by the back of his neck. Seconds crawl by in a tantalizingly slow thrum.

"You're gentle." The precipice of having him is an exquisite torture, Akashi decides and says, "Don't be."

The clear admission of trust was all Midorima needed it seems for Akashi is unable to find any trace of uncertainty in him when he lunges forward, claiming his mouth. Akashi finds himself kept in place by the palm stretched across the base of his spine when he stumbles back at the force of the kiss. Midorima takes him by the tongue, chasing away the shape of every secret until he's aching and begging for breath.

His eyes are glazed over when he opens them, the world redefining itself with abrupt sharpness when he's lifted by Midorima, hefted up to straddle his hips before being carried backwards. They tumble into the bed and Akashi grabs at his shirt, tugging it off with ease before thumbing the ridges of his abdomen as if to sculpt him. Midorima undresses him with the desire to devour, the speed at which he discards each layer from Akashi unmatched, flooded by a tempest. Akashi pulls at his belt loop, unzipping him just as Midorima bares him completely. "How do you want me?"

"Inside," says Akashi, unthinking. "I want you inside me."

Midorima groans when Akashi bucks into his groin, arching with his legs wrapped around him. This close his own hard length drags across Akashi's taut stomach. He slides forward to lean over him, a single elbow holding him upright. At the digit that enters him Akashi is once again reminded of how fond he is of Midorima's hands. He moans, nails grinding through a fistful of sheets when Midorima pulls out, slick with more than just lube this time before pushing back in with two, crooking in and out. Akashi convulses, muscles inadvertently constricting at the caress of a particularly sensitive area. Midorima repeats the motion, persistently brushing against the same spot, earning strained noises of pleasure.

The sight of Akashi losing it on his fingers arouses Midorima to the point of delirium. Three had been his modest estimate to prepare Akashi for him. They are halfway there and it's difficult to pace himself rather than blow through the rift between them. Midorima is convinced he's going mad, reminding himself of restraint, a necessity he is entirely capable of under ordinary circumstances. He's looked himself in the mirror however and that reins him in.

"I'm ready," Akashi pants instead, adamant, not knowing what he's doing to Midorima. As if it isn't enough he says, "My tests came in clean. Don't use anything when you fuck me."

Midorima swallows an expletive at the command to penetrate him without a barrier. It isn't easy for him to warn, "It's going to hurt if I come in now."

"It won't." Akashi promises, "It's okay if it's you."

Midorima stops fighting. He lines himself and pushes in, feeling his mind come apart at the throbbing heat around him with every inch. He stills as he is fully sheathed inside Akashi, letting him adjust.

Akashi chokes at the fullness of having Midorima within him, stretching at the tight fit, the burn of it making him hiss in pain. It's short lived and Akashi settles with the void in him finally filled, safe and whole in a way he has never been.

Throughout Midorima had been eyeing him intently. When Akashi gave a breathy sigh he allowed himself to ask, "Can I?" 

He nods, feeling Midorima begin to rock into him, picking up a rhythm. There's another pulse inside of him, beating itself into his own. He is so full, the curve of Midorima growing more apparent with every shift. Akashi wanted more, wanted him deeper, hooking his legs further around Midorima's waist. "Harder."

It's impossible to ignore the encouragement when he is moving through silk. Overcome in the sweltering folds Midorima starts slamming in earnest, faster and faster, barreling in and out of Akashi. "You feel so good. You're so good, Akashi."

With every thrust driven into him, Midorima is never as acutely aware of his own existence, heartbeat roaring in his ears. Under him Akashi is heady and feverish, suffused with warmth not entirely of his own making.

Akashi is beautiful.

Akashi is his.

Midorima plows harder, fingers threaded through his hair and Akashi finds himself entering nirvana, his blood running hot as he closed his eyes at the feeling of flesh inside him, the friction too much and not enough. "Please, please..."

As if reading him Midorima chooses that moment to kiss him, all the while reaching for Akashi's pleasure, stroking with purpose. Akashi's mouth is soft and pliant against his own, if before losing grasp, teeth sucking under his jaw. The marks will show tomorrow, Midorima realizes with the ghost of a laugh. "Good?"

A verbal reply shouldn't be required of him when he's swelling and leaking in Midorima's hand, nearing release. Akashi clings onto Midorima, clawing and scrabbling onto his shoulder blades. It comes to him that he'll get to have a lifetime of this, of Midorima above him, frantically snapping his hips, tearing out his breath from him that he croaks, "Finish in me."

Midorima complies effortlessly at the demand, coming inside Akashi in white hot bursts, splattering into his walls. Instantaneously Akashi clenches around him at the wetness. Midorima fucks him through his orgasm with long drawn thrusts as he spills, coming with a ragged cry, already addicted to the sound. 

The afterglow is a myth, Midorima concludes as he catches himself from falling onto Akashi at the sudden tension leaving his body. Bathed in shadows Akashi is giddy and lightheaded, groggy enough not to mind being crushed, welcoming him in fact. "For the record you'd make a great sex therapist."

Midorima coaxes back the hair lining his sweat damp face and smiles. "Duly noted."

There is a curious glint to Akashi's eyes. "Do you think your parents heard us?"

"Your guess is as good as mine." Midorima tells him, "I think my mother's only concern would be telling Kaori she can't marry you."

Akashi laughs at that, a soft pale fire as mesmerizing as morning dew. And it hits him just like that.

This is how it feels when your first love will be your last.

Midorima doesn't mind at all.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Complete. 
> 
> Finally finished after jamming in every head canon I have based on two episodes of interaction. This piece was personal. I took away a fair bit writing this, although I can't say it helped with being sad at all.
> 
> Still if you've gotten this far, thank you for reading.


End file.
